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

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.17-22
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• 2009

Two different organic-inorganic hybrid thin film transistors (OITFTs) with the structures of glass/ITO/ZnO/PMMA/Al (staggered structure) and glass/ITO/PMMA/ZnO/Al (inverted staggered structure), were fabricated and their electrical and structural properties were compared. The ZnO thin films used as active channel layers were deposited by the atomic layer deposition (ALD) method at a temperature of $100^{\circ}C$. To investigate the effect of the substrates on their properties, the ZnO films were deposited on bare glass, PMMA/glass and ITO/glass substrates and their crystal properties and surface morphologies were analyzed. The structural properties of the ZnO films varied with the substrate conditions. The ZnO film deposited on the ITO/glass substrate showed better crystallinity and morphologies, such as a higher preferred c-axis orientation, lower FWHM value and larger particle size compared with the one deposited on the PMMA/glass substrate. The field effect mobility ($\mu$), threshold voltage ($V_T$) and $I_{on/off}$ switching ratio for the OITFT with the staggered structure were about $0.61\;cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, 5.5 V and $10^2$, whereas those of the OITFT with the inverted staggered structure were found to be $0.31\;cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, 6.8 V and 10, respectively. The improved electrical properties for the staggered OITFTs may originate from the improved crystal properties and larger particle size of the ZnO active layer.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.652-657
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• 2015

We have investigated the properties of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films as functions of atomic layer deposition (ALD) oxidants. AZO transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) layer was deposited by ALD with adding trimethylaluminum (TMA) and diethylzinc (DEZn). AZO films were deposited at low temperature with $H_2O$ and $O_3$ as oxidants. Electrical, optical and structural properties of AZO thin films were investigated by 4-point probe, Hall effect measurement, UV-VIS, and AFM. Microstructure and atomic bonding states were investigated by HRXRD and XPS. The resistivity of AZO films grown using $H_2O$ was lower than the films grown using $H_2O$ and $O_3$, by approximately two orders of magnitude. The differences in oxygen vacancy peak intensity of AZO films were correlated to the optical and electrical properties.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.169-173
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• 2011

In this study, Al-N codoped p-type zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited on Si and homo-buffer layer templates in a mixture of $N_2$ and $O_2$ gas with ceramic ZnO:(2 wt% $Al_2O_3$) as a sputtering target using DC- magnetron sputtering. X-ray diffraction spectra of two-theta diffraction showed that all films have a predominant (002) peak of ZnO Wurtzite structure. As the $N_2$ fraction in the mixed $N_2$ and $O_2$ gases increased, field emission secondary electron microscopy revealed that the surface appearance of codoped films on Si varied from smooth to textured structure. The p-type ZnO thin films showed carrier concentration in the range of $1.5{\times}10^{15}-2.93{\times}10^{17}\;cm^{-3}$, resistivity in the range of 131.2-2.864 ${\Omega}cm$, and mobility in the range of $3.99-31.6\;cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$ respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.55-55
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• 2018

Recently, amorphous oxides such as InGaZnO (IGZO) and InZnO (IZO) as a channel layer of an oxide TFT have been attracted by advantages such as high mobility, good uniformity, and high transparency. In order to apply such an amorphous oxide TFTs to a display, the stability in various environments must be ensured. In the InGaZnO which has been studied in the past, Ga elements act as a suppressor of oxygen vacancy and result in a decreased mobility at the same time. Previous studies have been showed that the InZnO, which does not contain Ga, can achieve high mobility, but has relatively poor stability under various instability environments. In this study, the TFTs using $IZO/Al_2O_3$ double layer structure were studied. The introduction of an $Al_2O_3$ interlayer between source/drain and channel causes superior electrical characteristics and electrical stability as well as reduced contact resistance with optimally perfect ohmic contact. For the IZO and $Al_2O_3$ bilayer structures, the IZO 30nm IZO channels were prepared at $Ar:O_2=30:1$ by sputtering and the $Al_2O_3$ interlayer were depostied with various thickness by ALD at $150^{\circ}C$. The optimal sample exhibits considerably good TFT performance with $V_{th}$ of -3.3V and field effect mobility of $19.25cm^2/Vs$, and reduced $V_{th}$ shift under positive bias stress stability, compared to conventional IZO TFT. The enhanced TFT performances are closely related to the nice ohmic contact properties coming from the defect passivation of the IZO surface inducing charge traps, and we will provide the detail mechanism and model via electrical analysis and transmission line method.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.01a
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• pp.37-38
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• 2000

The ZnS:Tb thin-film electroluminescent devices were grown by atomic layer deposition with utilizing single-layer aluminum oxide and/or multilayered tantalum aluminum oxide, $Ta_xAl_yO$, as upper and lower insulating layers. These devices were investigated in terms of the luminescent and electrical characteristics. From this analysis, the devices using the $Ta_xAl_yO$ instead of $Al_2O_3$ were observed to have a lower threshold voltage for emission due to the higher relative dielectric constant of $Ta_xAl_yO$ insulators than that of the $Al_2O_3$ device. And there was a large amount of dynamic space charge generation in the phosphor of the device with the $Ta_xAl_yO$ insulators seemingly due to electron multiplication such as trap ionization.

• 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.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.318-321
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• 2009

We have studied transparent top gate Al-Zn-Sn-O (AZTO) TFTs with an $Al_2O_3$ protective layer (PL) on an active layer. We also fabricated a transparent 2.5 inch QCIF+AMOLED display panel using the AZTO TFT back-plane. The AZTO active layers were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature and the PL was deposited by ALD with two different processes. The mobility and subthreshold slope were superior in the cases of the vacuum annealing and the oxygen plasma PL compared to the $O_2$ annealing and the water vapor PL, however, the bias stability was excellent for the TFTs of the $O_2$ annealing and the water vapor PL.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.159-159
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• 2009

RF 스퍼터링법을 이용하여 유리기판위에 ZnO:Al 박막을 증착하고 다양한 조건 하에서 후 열처리를 실시하여 이에 따른 박막의 구조적, 전기적 및 광학적 특성과 HCl 습식 식각 후의 표면형상 변화를 조사하였다. ZnO:Al 투명전도막은 우수한 전기적, 광학적 특성, 수소 플라즈마 안정성 및 저 비용 등으로 실리콘 박막 태양전지 전면 전극용으로 많은 관심을 받고 있다. 기존의 비정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지용으로 많이 사용되고 있는 상용 Asahi-U형 ($SnO_2:F$) 투명전도막의 경우는 수소 플라즈마에 대한 안정성이 낮고 입사광의 장파장 대역에서의 낮은 산란특성으로 인하여 실리콘 박막 태양전지의 고효율화를 위한 적용에 한계를 나타내고 있다. 이를 개선하기 위하여 스퍼터링법으로 우수한 전기적 특성을 갖는 ZnO:Al 박막을 제조한 후 습식 식각을 통한 표면형상 변화를 통하여 입사광의 산란특성을 향상시키는 방법이 개발되어 많은 연구가 이루어지고 있다. 본 연구에서는 2.5 wt%의 $Al_2O_3$가 함유된 ZnO 타겟을 이용하여 ZnO:Al 박막을 RF 스퍼터링으로 증착한 후 $N_2$ 분위기와 진공 분위기 하에서 다양한 시간과 온도에 따라 후열처리를 하여 열처리 전 박막과의 물질 특성을 상호 비교하고 1%로 희석된 HCl로 습식 식각하여 열처리 전 박막의 구조적 특성이 습식 식각 후의 박막 표면형상 변화에 미치는 영향을 조사하였다. 이로부터 후열처리를 통한 ZnO:Al 투명전도막의 특성을 최적화하고 Asahi-U형 투명전도막과의 특성 비교를 통하여 실리콘 박막 태양전지용 전면전극으로의 적용 가능성을 조사하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.262.2-262.2
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• 2013

ZnO는 광학적 및 전기적 성질의 여러 가지 장점 때문에 메모리, 나노발전기, 트랜지스터, 태양전지, 광탐지기 및 레이저와 같은 전자소자 및 광소자로 여러 분야에서 다양하게 사용되고 있다. Al이 도핑된 ZnO 나노결정체를 전기화학적 증착법을 이용하여 형성하고, 형성시간의 변화에 따른 구조적 및 광학적 성질을 관찰했다. ITO로 코팅된 유리 기판에 전기화학증착법을 이용해 Al 도핑된 ZnO를 성장시켰다. Sputtering, pulsed laser vapor deposition, 화학기상증착, atomic layer epitaxy, 전자빔증발법 등으로 Al 도핑된 ZnO 나노구조를 형성할 수 있지만, 본 연구에서는 간단한 공정과정, 저온증착, 고속, 저가의 특성 등으로 경제적인 면에서 효율적인 전기화학증착법을 이용했다. 반복실험을 통하여 Al의 도핑 농도는 Zn와 Al의 비율이 98:2이 되도록, ITO 양극과 Pt 음극의 전위차가 -2.25 V가 되도록 실험조건을 고정했고, 성장시간을 각각 1분, 5분, 10분으로 변화하였다. 주사전자현미경 사진을 보면 Al 도핑된 ZnO는 성장 시간이 증가함에 따라 나노구조의 직경이 커지는 것을 알 수 있다. 광루미네센스 측정 결과는 산소 공핍의 증가로 보이는 500~600 nm대의 파장에서 나타난 피크의 위치가 에너지가 큰 쪽으로 증가했다. 위 결과로부터 성장 시간에 따른 Al 도핑된 ZnO의 구조적 및 광학적 특성변화를 관찰했고, 이 연구 결과는 Al 도핑된 ZnO 나노구조 기반 전자소자 및 광소자에 응용 가능성을 보여주고 있다.