• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.320-325
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• 2022

In this study, we investigated the deposition of trimethoxy(propyl)silane as a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on the surface of an indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) by examining the changes in surface characteristics of the modified substrate with variations in deposition time and temperature. The highest contact angle was obtained at 160 ℃, and for each deposition time, the contact angles were 63°, 66°, 80°, 96°, 103°, 103°, 103°, and 104°, respectively, indicating the contact angle, and thus the hydrophobicity, increased with increasing deposition time and temperature. In addition, after 90 min of deposition, adequate SAM coverage was achieved on the ITO surface. When the coverage ratio was calculated, ≥ 99% coverage was obtained after 90 min of deposition at 160 ℃. Atomic force microscopy of samples with SAM coverage obtained after 90 min at different deposition tem-peratures revealed improvement in the surface roughness of the fabricated samples. The work function, measured using a photoelectron spectrometer, demonstrated a characteristic increase with increasing temperature. Thus, SAM deposition can improve the ITO surface properties depending on the time and temperature of deposition.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.469-475
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• 2013

Al-doped ZnO(AZO) thin films were synthesized using atomid layer deposition(ALD), which acurately controlled the uniform film thickness of the AZO thin films. To investigate the electrical and optical properites of the AZO thin films, AZO films using ALD was controlled to be three different thicknesses (50 nm, 100 nm, and 150 nm). The structural, chemical, electrical, and optical properties of the AZO thin films were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emssion scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Hall measurement system, and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. As the thickness of the AZO thin films increased, the crystallinity of the AZO thin films gradually increased, and the surface morphology of the AZO thin films were transformed from a porous structure to a dense structure. The average surface roughnesses of the samples using atomic force microscopy were ~3.01 nm, ~2.89 nm, and ~2.44 nm, respectively. As the thickness of the AZO filmsincreased, the surface roughness decreased gradually. These results affect the electrical and optical properties of AZO thin films. Therefore, the thickest AZO thin films with 150 nm exhibited excellent resistivity (${\sim}7.00{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$), high transmittance (~83.2 %), and the best FOM ($5.71{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}^{-1}$). AZO thin films fabricated using ALD may be used as a promising cadidate of TCO materials for optoelectronic applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

At present, the Department of Energy (DOE) in Unite State are directing the efforts of developing accident tolerant fuel (ATF) technology. As the first barrier of nuclear fuel system, the material selection of fuel rod cladding for ATFs is a basic but very significant issue for the development of this concept. The advanced cladding is attractive for providing much stronger oxidation resistance and better in-pile behavior under sever accident conditions (such as SBO, LOCA) for giving more coping time and, of course, at least an equivalent performance under normal condition. In recent years, many researches on in-plie or out-pile physical properties of some suggested cladding materials have been conducted to solve this material selection problem. Base on published literatures, this paper introduced relevant research backgrounds, objectives, research institutions and their progresses on several main potential claddings include triplex SiC, FeCrAl and MAX phase material Ti3SiC2. The physical properties of these claddings for their application in ATF area are also reviewed in thermohydraulic and mechanical view for better understanding and simulating the behaviors of these new claddings. While most of important data are available from publications, there are still many relevant properties are lacking for the evaluations.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.175-180
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• 2010

Transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films are widely used for optoelectronic applications. Among TCO materials, zinc oxide (ZnO) has been studied extensively for its high optical transmission and electrical conduction. In this study, the effects of $O_2$ plasma pretreatment on the properties of Ga-doped ZnO films (GZO) on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate were studied. The $O_2$ plasma pretreatment process was used instead of conventional oxide buffer layers. The $O_2$ plasma treatment process has several merits compared with the oxide buffer layer treatment, especially on a mass production scale. In this process, an additional sputtering system for oxide composition is not needed and the plasma treatment process is easily adopted as an in-line process. GZO films were fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering process. To improve surface energy and adhesion between the PEN substrate and the GZO film, the $O_2$ plasma pre-treatment process was used prior to GZO sputtering. As the RF power and the treatment time increased, the contact angle decreased and the RMS surface roughness increased significantly. It is believed that the surface energy and adhesive force of the polymer surfaces increased with the $O_2$ plasma treatment and that the crystallinity and grain size of the GZO films increased. When the RF power was 100W and the treatment time was 120 sec in the $O_2$ plasma pretreatment process, the resistivity of the GZO films on the PEN substrate was $1.05\;{\times}\;10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$, which is an appropriate range for most optoelectronic applications.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.267-271
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• 2009

Multicomponent transparent conducting oxide films were deposited on glass substrates at 150 by dual magnetron sputtering of AZO and ITO targets. In the case of mixing a limited amount of ITO (10W), resistivity of TCO films was significantly increased compared to the AZO film; from $3.5{\times}10^{-3}$ to $9.7{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. Deterioration of the electrical conductivity is attributed to the decreases in carrier concentration and Hall mobility. Improvement of the conductivity could be obtained for the films prepared with ITO powers larger than 40 W. The lowest resistivity ($\rho$) of $7.3{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ was achieved when ITO power was 100 W. Effects of $H_2$ incorporation on the electrical and optical properties of AZO-ITO films were investigated in this work. Addition of small amount of hydrogen resulted in the increase of carrier concentration and the improvement of electrical conductivity. It is apparent that the roughness of AZO-ITO films decreases dramatically after the transition of microstructure from polycrystalline to amorphous phase, which gives practical advantages such as an excellent uniformity of surface and a high etching rate. AZO-ITO films grown at sputtering ambient with hydrogen gas are expected to be applicable to optoelectronic devices such as organic light emitting diodes and flexible displays due to their sufficient electrical and structural properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.167-167
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• 2010

Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been widely used as transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) for transparent electrodes of various optoelectronic devices, such as liquid crystal displays (LCD) and organic light emitting diodes (OLED). However, indium has become increasingly expensive and rare because of its limited resources. In addition, ITO thin films have some problems for OLED and flexible displays, such as imperfect work function, chemical instability, and high deposition temperature. Therefore, multi-component TCO materials have been reported as anode materials. Among the various materials, IZTO thin films have been gained much attention as anode materials due to their high work function, good conductivity, high transparency and low deposition temperature. IZTO thin films with a thickness of 200nm were deposited on Corning glass substrate at different substrate temperature by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering with a sintered ceramic target of IZTO (In2O3 70 wt%, ZnO 15 wt%, SnO2 15 wt%). We investigated the electrical, optical, structural properties of IZTO thin films. As the substrate temperature is increased, the electrical properties of IZTO are improved. All IZTO thin films have good optical properties, which showed an average of transmittance over 80%. These IZTO thin films were used to fabricate organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) as anode and the device performances studied. As a result, IZTO has utility value of TCO electrode although it reduced indium and we expect it is possible for the IZTO to apply to flexible display due to the low processing temperature.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.150-155
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• 2021

Zinc oxide (ZnO) based transparent conducting oxides (TCO) thin films, are used in many applications such as solar cells, flat panel displays, and LEDs due to their wide bandgap nature and excellent electrical properties. In the present work, fluorine and aluminium-doped ZnO targets are prepared and thin films are deposited on soda-lime glass substrate using a RF magnetron sputtering unit. The aluminium concentration is fixed at 2 wt%, and the fluorine concentration is adjusted between 0 to 2.0 wt% with five different concentrations, namely, Al2ZnO98(AZO), F0.5AZO97.5(FAZO1), F1AZO97(FAZO2), F1.5AZO96.5(FAZO3), and F2AZO96(FAZO4). Thin films are deposited with an RF power of 40 W and working pressure of 5 m Torr at 270 ℃. The morphological analysis performed for the thin film reveals that surface roughness decreases in FAZO1 and FAZO2 samples when doped with a small amount of fluorine. Further, optical and electrical properties measured for FAZO1 sample show average optical transmissions of over 89 % in the visible region and 82.5 % in the infrared region, followed by low resistivity and sheet resistance of 3.59 × 10-4 Ωcm and 5.52 Ω/sq, respectively. In future, these thin films with excellent optoelectronic properties can be used for thin-film solar cell and other optoelectronics applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.433-433
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• 2009

ZnO-based materials have been extensively studied for optoelectronic applications due to their superiors physical properties such as wide direct bandgap (~3.37 eV), large exciton binding energy (~60 meV), high transparency in the visible region, and low cost. Especially, one-dimensional (1D) ZnO nanostructures have attracted considerable attention owing to quantum confinement effect and high crystalline quality. Additionally, various nanostructures of ZnO such as nanorods, nanowires, nanoflower, and nanotubes have stimulated the interests because of their semiconducting. and piezoelectric properties. Among them, vertically aligned ZnO nanorods can bring the improved performance in various promising photoelectric fields including piezo-nanogenerators, UV lasers, dye sensitized solar cells, and photo-catalysis. In this work, we studied the effect of the annealing temperature of homo seed layers on the formation of ZnO nanorods grown by hydrothermal method. The effect of annealing temperature of seed layer on the length and orientation of the nanorods was investigated scanning electron microscopy investigation. Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurement were performed to understand the effect of annealing temperatures of seed layers on the formation of nanorods. Moreover, the optical properties of the seed layers and the nanorods were studied by room temperature photoluminescence.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.120-120
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• 2008

We demonstrate epitaxial growth of ZnO thin films on 4H-SiC(0001) substrates using pulsed laser deposition (PLD). ZnO and SiC have attracted attention for their special material properties as wide band gap semiconductors. Especially, ZnO could be applied to optoelectronic applications such as light emitting devices and photo detectors due to its direct wide bandgap (Eg) of ~3.37eV and large exciton binding energy of ~60meV. SiC shows a good lattice matching to ZnO compared with other commonly used substrates and in this regard SiC is a good candidate as a substrate for ZnO. In this work, ZnO thin films were grown on 4H-SiC(0001) substrates by PLD using an Nd:YAG laser with a 355nm wavelength. The crystalline properties of the films were evaluated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) $\theta-2\theta$, rocking curve and pole figure measurements using a high-resolution diffractometer. The surface morphology of the films was studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.208-208
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• 2010

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a functional material with interesting optical and electrical properties, a wide band gap (more than 3.3 eV), a high transmittance in the visible light region, piezoelectric properties, and a high n-type conductivity. This material has been investigated for use in many applications, such as transparent electrodes, blue light-emitting diodes, and ultra-violet detector. ZnO films grown under low oxygen pressure by thin film deposition methods show low resistivity and large free electron concentration. Therefore, reducing the background carrier concentration in ZnO films is one of the major challenges ahead of realizing high-performance ZnO-based optoelectronic devices. In this study, we deposited ZnO thin films on sapphire substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with employing an oxygen plasma source to decrease the background free-electron concentration and enhance the crystalline quality. Then, the substrate temperature was varied between 200 'C to 900 'C The vacuum chamber was initially evacuated to a pressure of $10^{-6}$ Torr, and then a pure $O_2$ gas was introduced into the chamber and the pressure during deposition was maintained at $10^{-2}$ Torr. Crystallinity and orientation of ZnO films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The film surface was analyzed with atomic force microscope (AFM). And electrical properties were measured at room temperature by Hall measurement.