• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1096_1097
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• 2009

Aluminium doped zinc oxide(ZnO:Al) thin film, which is mainly used as a transparent conducting electrode in electronic devices, has many advantages compared with conventional indium tin oxide(ITO). In this paper in order to investigate the possible application of ZnO:Al thin films as a transparent conducting electrode for flexible film-typed dye sensitized solar cell (FT-DSCs), ZnO:Al and ITO thin films were prepared on the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate by r. f. magnetron sputtering method. Specially one-inched FT-DSCs using either a ZnO:Al or ITO electrode were also fabricated separately under the same manufacturing conditions. Some properties of both the FT-DSCs with ZnO:Al and ITO transparent electrodes, such as conversion efficiency, fill factor, and photocurrent were measured and compared with each other. The results showed that by doping the ZnO target with 2 wt% of $Al_2O_3$, the film deposited at discharge power of 200W resulted in the minimum resistivity of $2.2\times10^{-3}\Omega/cm$ and at ransmittance of 91.7%, which are comparable with those of commercially available ITO. Two types of FT-DSCs showed nearly the same tendency of I-V characteristics and the same value of conversion efficiencies. Efficiency of FT-DSCs using ZnO:Al electrode was around 2.6% and that of fabricated FT-DSCs using ITO was 2.5%. This means that ZnO:Al thin film can be used in FT-DSCs as a transparent conducting layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.525-528
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• 2001

ZnO:Al thin film can be used as a transparent conducting oxide(TCO) which has low electric resistivity and high optical transmittance for the front electrode of amorphous silicon solar cells and display devices. This study of electrical, crystallographic and optical properties of Al doped ZnO thin films prepared by Facing Targets Sputtering (FTS), where strong internal magnets were contained in target holders to confine the plasma between the targets, is described. Optimal transmittance and resistivity was obtained by controlling flow rate of O$_2$ gas and substrate temperature. When the of gas rate of 0.3 and substrate temperature 200$^{\circ}C$ , ZnO:Al thin film had strongly oriented c-axis and lower resistivity(<10$\^$-4/Ω-cm).

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2008.07a
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• pp.1262-1263
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• 2008

Recently film-typed dye sensitized solar cell(DSC) attracts much attention with increasing applications for its flexibility and transparency. The ZnO:Al thin film, which serves mainly as transparent conducting electrode, Aluminium-doped zinc oxide(ZnO:Al) thin film has emerged as one of the most promising transparent conducting films since it is inexpensive, mechanically stable, and highly resistant to deoxidation. In this paper ZnO:Al thin film was deposited on the polyethylene terephthalate(PET) substrate by the capacitively coupled r. f. magnetron sputtering method. The effects of gas pressure and r. f. discharge power on the morphological, electrical and optical properties of ZnO:Al thin film were studied. Especially the variation in substrate thickness after sputtering and surface morphology of the substrate were investigated and clarified. The results showed that the film deposited on the PET substrate at r. f. discharge power of 180 W showed the minimum resistivity of about $1.5{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$ and a transmittance of about 93%.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.338-342
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• 2016

ZnO thin film co-doped with F and Al was prepared on a glass substrate via simple non-alkoxide sol-gel spin coating. For a fixed F concentration, the addition of Al co-dopant was shown to reduce the resistivity mainly due to an increase in electrical carrier density compared with ZnO doped with F only, especially after the second post-heat-treatment in a reducing environment. There was no effective positive contribution to the reduction in resistivity due to the mobility enhancement by the addition of Al co-dopant. Optical transmittance of the ZnO thin film co-doped with F and Al in the visible light domain was shown to be higher than that of the ZnO thin film doped with F only.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.177-181
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• 2011

We have studied structural, optical, and electrical properties of the Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films being usable in transparent conducting oxides. The AZO thin films were deposited on the corning 1737 glass plate by the RF magnetron sputtering system. To find optimal properties of AZO for transparent conducting oxides, the RF power in sputtering process was varied as 40 W, 60 W, and 80 W, respectively. As RF power increased, the crystallinity of AZO thin film was decreased, the optical bandgap of AZO thin film increased. The transmittance of the film was over 80% in the visible light range regardless of the changes in RF power. The measurement of Hall effect characterizes the whole thin film as n-type, and the electrical property was improved with increasing RF power. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of the AZO thin films were affected by Al dopant content in AZO thin film.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.378-382
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• 2003

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCI (0.5%) to examine the electrical and surface morphology properties as a variation of the time. The most important deposition condition of surface-textured ZnO films by chemical etching is the processing pressure md the substrate temperature. In low pressures (0.9mTorr) and high substrate temperatures ($\leq$$300^{\circ}C$), the surface morphology of films exhibits a more dense and compact film structure with effective light-trapping to apply the silicon thin film solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.391-394
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• 2002

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCl (0.5%) to examine the electrical and surface morphology Properties as a variation of the time. The most important deposition condition of surface-textured ZnO films by chemical etching is the processing pressure and the substrate temperature. In low pressures (0.9 mTorr) and high substrate temperatures ($\leq$30$0^{\circ}C$), the surface morphology of films exhibits a more dense and compact film structure with effective light-trapping to apply the silicon thin film solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of IIIuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.177-179
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• 2009

In order to investigate the possible application of ZnO films as a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrode, ZnO:Al films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering method. The effects of surface treatment and doping concentration on the structural and electrical properties of ZnO films were mainly studied experimentally. Five-inch PDP cells using either a ZnO:Al or indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode were also fabricated separately under the same manufacturing conditions. The luminous properties of both the transparent conducting oxide electrode were measured and compared with each other. By doping the ZnO target with 2 wt% of Al2O3, the film deposited at a chemical surface treatment resulted in the minimum resistivity of 8.5 _ 10_4 U-cm and a transmittance of 91.7%. And DBD surface treatment resulted in the minimum resistivity of 8.5 _ 10_4 U-cm and a transmittance of 91.7%. Although the luminance and luminous efficiency of the transparent conducting oxide electrode using ZnO:AI are lower than those of the cell with the ITO electrode by about 10%, these values are sufficient enough to be considered for the normal operation of TCO.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.525-528
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• 2001

ZnO:Al thin film can be used as a transparent conducting oxide(TCO) which has low electric resistivity and high optical transmittance for the front electrode of amorphous silicon solar cells and display devices. This study of electrical, crystallographic and optical properties of Al doped ZnO thin films prepared by Facing Targets Sputtering(FTS), where strong internal magnets were contained in target holders to confine the plasma between the targets, is described. Optimal transmittance and resistivity was obtained by controlling flow rate of $O_2$ gas and substrate temperature. When the $O_2$ gas rate of 0.3 and substrate temperature $200^{\circ}C$, ZnO:Al thin film had strongly oriented c-axis and lower resistivity( < $10^{-4}{\Omega}-cm$ ).

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.149-154
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• 1996

ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin films were prepared by sol-gel dip-coating method and electrical and optical properties of films were investigated. Using the zinc acetate dihydrate and acetylaceton(AcAc) as a chelating agent stable ZnO sol was synthesized with HCl catalyst. Adding aluminium chloride to the ZnO sol Al-doped ZnO sol could be also synthesized. As Al contents increase the crystallinity of ZnO thin film was retarded by increased compressive stress in the film resulted from the difference of ionic radius between Zn2+ and Al3+ The thickness of ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin film was in the range of 2100~2350$\AA$. The resistivity of ZnO thin films was measured by Van der Pauw method. ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin films with annealing temperature and Al content had the resistivity of 0.78~1.65$\Omega$cm and ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin film post-annealed at 40$0^{\circ}C$ in vacuum(5$\times$10-5 torr) showed the resistivity of 2.28$\times$10-2$\Omega$cm. And the trans-mittance of ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin film is in the range of 91-97% in visible range.