• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.15 no.9
• /
• pp.604-607
• /
• 2005

Dependence of the crystallinity, surface roughness, carrier concentration, carrier mobility, electrical resistivity and transmittance of Al-doped ZnO films deposited on glass substrates by RF-magnetron sputtering on effects of the ratio of the RF power for AlZnO to that for ZnO (R) have been investigated. X-ray diffraction spectra show strong preferred orientation along the c-axis. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the ZnO (002) peak decreases slightly as R increases in the range of R<1.0, whereas it increases substantially in the range of R>1.0. Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) show that the ZnO film surface becomes coarse as R increases. The carrier concentration and the carrier mobility in the ZnO thin film are maximal for R=1.5 and 1.0, respectively. The electrical resistivity is minimal for R=1.0 The transmittance of the ZnO:Al film tends to increase, but to decrease slightly in the range of R>0.5. It may be concluded that the optimum R value is 1.0, considering all these analysis results. The cause of the changes in the structure and physical properties of ZnO thin films with R are also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.7
• /
• pp.738-746
• /
• 2004

Recently zinc oxide(ZnO) has emerged as one of the most promising transparent conducting films with a strong demand of low cost and high performance optoelectronic devices, ZnO film has many advantages such as high chemical and mechanical stabilities, and abundance in nature. In this paper, in order to obtain the excellent transparent conducting film with low resistivity and high optical transmittance for Plasma Display Pannel(PDP), aluminium doped zinc oxide films were deposited on Corning glass substrate by dc magnetron sputtering method. The effects of the discharge power and doping amounts of $Al_2$$O_3$ on the electrical and optical properties were investigated experimentally. Particularly in order to lower the electrical resistivity, positive and negative bias voltages were applied on the substrate, and the effect of bias voltage on the electrical properties of ZnO:Al thin film were also studied and discussed. Films with lowest resistivity of $4.3 \times 10 ^{-4} \Omega-cm$ and good transmittance of 91.46 % have been achieved for the films deposited at 1 mtorr, $400^{\circ}C$, 40 W, Al content of 2 wt% with a substrate bias of +30 V for about 800 nm in film thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2002.05b
• /
• pp.62-65
• /
• 2002

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Coming 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 (0.9mTorr) 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.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
• /
• v.39 no.3
• /
• pp.98-104
• /
• 2006

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films were deposited on the plastic substrate by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted DC magnetron sputtering. The AZO films were produced by sputtering a metallic target (Zn/Al) in a mixture of argon and oxygen gases. AZO films with an electrical resistivity of ${\sim}10^3\;{\Omega}cm$ and an optical transmittance of 80% were obtained even at a low deposition temperature. In-situ process control methods were used to obtain stable deposition conditions in the transition region without any hysteresis effect. The target voltage was controlled either at a constant DC power. It was found that the ratio of the zinc to oxygen emission intensity, I (O 777)/I (Zn 481) decreased with increasing the target voltage in the transition region. The $Ar/O_2$ plasma treatment improve the adhesion strength between the polycarbonate substrate and AZO films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.419-420
• /
• 2008

In this study, high quality (Al,N)-codoped p-type ZnO thin films were obtained by DC magnetron sputtering. The film on buffer layer grown in 80% $N_2$ ambient shows highest hole concentration of $2.93\times10^{17}cm^{-3}$. The films show hole concentration in the range of $1.5\times10^{15}$ to $2.93\times10^{17}cm^{-3}$, resistivity of 131.2 to 2.864 $\Omega$cm, mobility of 3.99 to 31.6 $cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$. The films on Si show easier p-doping in ZnO than those on buffer layer. The film on Si shows the highest quality of optical photoluminescence (PL) characteristics. The donor energy level $(E_d)$ of (Al,N)-codoped ZnO films is about 50 meV and acceptor energy level $(E_a)$ is in the range of 63 to 71 meV. It will help to improve p-type ZnO films.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.245-252
• /
• 2009

Changes in the surface morphology and light scattering of textured Al doped ZnO thin films on glass substrates prepared by rf magnetron sputtering were investigated. As-deposited ZnO:Al films show a high transmittance of above 80% in the visible range and a low electrical resistivity of $4.5{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. The surface morphology of textured ZnO:Al films are closely dependent on the deposition parameters of heater temperature, working pressure, and etching time in the etching process. The optimized surface morphology with a crater shape is obtained at a heater temperature of $350^{\circ}C$, working pressure of 0.5 mtorr, and etching time of 45 seconds. The optical properties of light transmittance, haze, and angular distribution function (ADF) are significantly affected by the resulting surface morphologies of textured films. The film surfaces, having uniformly size-distributed craters, represent good light scattering properties of high haze and ADF values. Compared with commercial Asahi U ($SnO_2$:F) substrates, the suitability of textured ZnO:Al films as front electrode material for amorphous silicon thin film solar cells is also estimated with respect to electrical and optical properties.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.08b
• /
• pp.1273-1276
• /
• 2007

We provide a newly developed dry etching process for the fabrication of ZnO-based oxide TFTs. The etching characteristics of ZnO (active layer) and $Al_2O_3$ (gate insulator) thin films were systematically investigated when the etching gas mixtures and their mixing ratios were varied in the heliconplasma etching system.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.337-341
• /
• 2010

In this work, the nanocrystalline ZnO/polycrystalline(poly) aluminum nitride(AlN)/ Si-layered structure was fabricated for humidity sensor applications based on surface acoustic wave(SAW). The ZnO film was used as a sensitive material layer. The ZnO and AlN(0002) were deposited by a sol-gel process and a pulse reactive magnetron sputtering, respectively. The ZnO sensitive films coated on AlN have a hexagonal wurtzite structure after the thin films annealed at $400^{\circ}C$, $500^{\circ}C$ and $600^{\circ}C$. The surface of the film exhibits sponginess and a nanometer particle size(below 50 nm). The largest shift in the frequency response was at approximately 200 kHz(the relative humidity: 10 %~90 %) for the structure annealed at $400^{\circ}C$. The effect of the change in the environmental temperature on the frequency response of the SAW humidity sensor was also investigated.

• Korean Journal of Crystallography
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.134-140
• /
• 1995

SAW properties of SiNx/ZnO bilayer thin film structure were analyzed. ZnO thin films were deposited by rf magnetron sputter using O2 gas as an oxidizer. Structure of ZnO thin films was affected by Ar/O2 ratio. At the gas ratio of Ar/O2=67/33, the standard deviation of X-ray rocking curve of (002) preferred ZnO thin film was 2.17 degree. This value is sufficient to use ZnO thin films as an acoustic element. SAW velocity of glass/SiNx(7000Å)/Al/ZnO(5μm) structure was max. 2.2% faster than that of ZnO/glass.

• Advances in Energy Research
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.97-104
• /
• 2014

A co-spray deposition technique has been developed to bypass a fundamental limitation in the conventional spray deposition technique, i.e., the deposition of metal oxides from incompatible precursors in the starting solution. With this technique, ZnO films codoped with F and Al have been successfully synthesized, in which F is incompatible with Al. Two starting solutions were prepared and co-sprayed through two separate spray heads. One solution contained only the F precursor, $NH_4F$. The second solution contained the Zn and Al precursors, $Zn(O_2CCH_3)_2$ and $AlCl_3$. The deposition was carried out at $500^{\circ}C$ on soda-lime glass in air. A minimum sheet resistance, $55.4{\Omega}/{\square}$, was obtained for Al and F codoped ZnO films after vacuum annealing at $400^{\circ}C$, which was lower than singly-doped ZnO with either Al or F. The transmittance for the codoped ZnO samples was above 90% in the visible range. This co-spray deposition technique provides a simple and cost-effective way to synthesize metal oxides from incompatible precursors with improved properties for photovoltaic applications.