• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.629-635
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• 2010

Abstract In this study characteristics of Al-doped ZnO thin film by HIPIMS (High power impulse sputtering) are discussed. Deposition speed of HIPIMS with conventional balanced magnetic field is measured at about 3 nm/min, which is 30% of that of conventional RF sputtering process with the same working pressure. To generate additional magnetic flux and increase sputtering speed, electromagnetic coil is mounted at the back side of target. Under unbalanced magnetic flux from electromagnet with 1.5A coil current, deposition speed of AZO thin film is increased from 3 nm/min to 4.4 nm/min. This new value originates from the decline of particles near target surface due to the local magnetic flux going toward substrate from electromagnet. AZO film sputtered by HIPIMS process shows very smooth and dense film surface for which surface roughness is measured from 0.4 nm to 1 nm. There are no voids or defects in morphology of AZO films with varying of magnetic field. When coil current is increased from 0A to 1A, transmittance of AZO thin film decreases from 80% to 77%. Specific resistance is measured at about $2.9{\times}10-2\Omega{\cdot}cm$. AZO film shows C-axis oriented structure and its grain size is calculated at about 5.3 nm, which is lower than grain size in conventional sputtering.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.112-119
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• 1997

Coastal sediments collected near the Youngkwang Nuclear Power Plant were analysed for major(Al$_2$O$^_3$, Fe$^_2$O$^_3$, MgO, CaO, Na$^_2$O, K$^_2$O, TiO$^_2$, MnO), trace (Ba, Sr, V, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, Pb) metal, and P$^_2$O$^_5$ contents. The composition of bulk metals from most stations fits within the range as those in the average crustal and sedimentary rocks, suggesting that the anthropogenic perturbation of these components is insignificant. The abundance and distribution of total contents for the majority of metals in the surface sediment could be explained by the grain size and were associated with mud (<63 ${\mu}$m) contents. However, distributions of Ca, K, Sr and Ba did not have any significant association with the sediment grain size. This may be due to the geochemical coherence among these metals in certain minerals abundant in coarse grained fractions. The distribution of Pb appears to be partly affected by the contribution from aerosol fallout. Using the R'-mode factor analysis, we show that the variance of the metal contents could be explained by four factors which account for 93.7% of the total variance. It appears that texturally controlled and/or sorting factors influenced by fine fraction are the most dominant factors which determine the relative abundance and distribution of metals in the study area.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.545-549
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• 2010

Low-frequency noise (1/f noise) has been measured in order to analyze the Vth instability of ZnO TFTs having two different active layer thicknesses of 40 nm and 80 nm. Under electrical stress, it was found that the TFTs with the active layer thickness of 80 nm shows smaller threshold voltage shift (${\Delta}V_{th}$) than those with thickness of 40 nm. However the ${\Delta}V_{th}$ is completely relaxed after the removal of DC stress. In order to investigate the cause of this threshold voltage instability, we accomplished the 1/f noise measurement and found that ZnO TFTs exposed the mobility fluctuation properties, in which the noise level increases as the gate bias rises and the normalized drain current noise level($S_{ID}/{I_D}^2$) of the active layer of thickness 80 nm is smaller than that of active layer thickness of thickness 40 nm. This result means that the 80 nm thickness TFTs have a smaller density of traps. This result correlated with the physical characteristics analysis performmed using XRD, which indicated that the grain size increases when the active layer thickness is made thicker. Consequently, the number of preexisting traps in the device increases with decreasing thickness of the active layer and are related closely to the $V_{th}$ instability under electrical stress.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.213-216
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• 2014

The microstructure and varistor properties of ZPCCAE ($ZnO-Pr_6O_{11}-CoO-Cr_2O_3-Al_2O_3-Er_2O_3$) ceramics were investigated with different erbium amounts. Analysis of the microstructure indicated that the ceramics consisted of ZnO grains as a bulk phase, and intergranular layers (mixture of $Pr_6O_{11}$ and $Er_2O_3$) as a minor secondary phase. With the increase of the doped erbium amount, the densities of sintered pellets increased from 5.63 to $5.82g/cm^3$, and the average grain size decreased from 9.0 to $5.7{\mu}m$. The increase of the doped erbium amount increased the breakdown field from 2,649 to 5,074 V/cm, and the nonlinear coefficient from 27.6 to 39.1. It was found that in the range of 0.25 to 0.5 mol%, the doped erbium had little effect on the microstructure and electrical properties.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

AZO thin films have been fabricated on quartz substrate with various Al doping concentrations and annealing temperatures by sol-gel method. The bset condition of (002) orientation and smooth surface (rms = 1.082 nm) is obtained for the AZO thin film doped with 1 mol % Al and annealed at 550 $^{\circ}C$. The optical transmittance of AZO thin films is higher than 80 % in the visible region. We observe that the energy band gap extends with increasing the Al doping concentration. This phenomenon is due to the Burstein-Moss effect. Through the measurement of Hall effect, it is observed that the AZO thin film has larger carrier concentration and smaller electrical resistivity than the pure ZnO thin film. However, the AZO thin film shows the decrease of carrier concentration and the increase of resistivity with the increase of Al concentration, that is due to the segregation of Al at grain boundaries. The maximum carrier concentration of $1.80{\times}10^{19}\;cm^{-3}$ and the minimum resistivity of 0.84 ${\Omega}cm$ are obtained for the AZO thin film doped with 1 mol % Al and annealed at 550 $^{\circ}C$.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.64-68
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• 2012

We have successfully demonstrated a bandgap alteration of transparent zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film with Mg dopant by using sol-gel spin coating technique. By increasing the dopant from 0 to 30 atomic percent (at.%), a decrement value in the cutoff is observed, where the absorption edge shifts continuously to the shorter wavelength side, towards 300 nm. This resulted in a significant bandgap increment from 3.28 to 3.57 eV. However, the transmittance of the thin film at 350-800 nm gradually downgraded, from 93 to 80 % which is most probably due to the grain size that becomes bigger, and it also affected the electrical properties. The decrement from 45 to 0.05 mA at +10 V was observed in the I-V characteristics, concluding the significant relationship; where higher optical bandgap materials will exhibit lower conductivity. These findings may be useful in optoelectronics devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.309-309
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• 2009

In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) has drawn much attention as a compatible material for transparent thin film transistors (TTFT) channel layer due to its high mobility and optical transparency at low processing temperatures. In this work, we investigated the effect of oxygen ambient on structural, electrical and optical properties of amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) thin films by using pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The films were deposited at various oxygen pressures and the structural, electrical and optical properties were investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that amorphous IGZO films were grown at all oxygen pressures. The surface morphology and optical properties with various oxygen pressures were studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and UV-VIS spectroscopy, respectively. The grain boundary was observed more apparently and the calculated optical band gap became larger as oxygen pressure increased. To examine the electrical properties, Hall-effect measurements were carried out. The films showed high mobility.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.69-79
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• 1993

ZnO 바리스터는 전기전자 장치에 비이상적인 써어지 혹은 잡음신호가 침입하는 것을 막기위해서 폭넓게 사용되고 잇다. 많은 연구자들은 저전압 바리스터를 제조하기 위해서 요러가지 방법을 제시하였다. 그렇지만 그러한 방법들은 6V이하의 동작 전압을 갖는 바리스터를 제조하기는 어렵다. 본 연구에서는 새로운 3-성분 종입자법으로 제조한 바리스터의 전도특성을 보고하고자 한다. 온도범위 20-150.deg.C 및 전류 범위 $10^{-8}$~$10^{-1}$A/$cm^{2}$에서 관찰된 바리스터의 전도특성은 측정전류가 증가함에 따라서 다른 기구를 갖는 3개의 영역으로 구분되었다. 측정전류가 $10^{-3}$ A/$cm^{2}$이하인 경우에 오옴전도 혹은 누설전류 영역으로 해석 할 수 있었다. 측정 전류가 $10^{-3}$ A/$cm^{2}$ 부근에서는 이중 쇼트키 장벽에 의한 전도로 해석할 수 있었으며 또한 $10^{-3}$ A/$cm^{2}$ 이상의 전류 영역에서는 턴넬 전도 전류로 해석 할 수 있었다. 이상의 결과로 부터 3-성분 종입자법으로 저전압 바리스터를 제조하는 방법은 지금까지 보고된 어느 다른 방법보다도 우수하며 그 전도기구를 제시하였다.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.69-75
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• 2017

To establish low-temperature process conditions, process-property correlation has been investigated for Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) thin films deposited by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering. Thickness of GZO films and deposition temperature were varied from 50 to 500 nm and from room temperature to $250^{\circ}C$, respectively. Electrical properties of the GZO films initially improved with increase of temperature to $150^{\circ}C$, but deteriorated subsequently with further increase of the temperature. At lower temperatures, the electrical properties improved with increasing thickness; however, at higher temperatures, increasing thickness resulted in deteriorated electrical properties. Such changes in electrical properties were correlated to the microstructural evolution, which is dependent on the deposition temperature and the film thickness. While the GZO films had c-axis preferred orientation due to preferred nucleation, structural disordering with increasing deposition temperature and film thickness promoted grain growth with a-axis orientation. Consequently, it was possible to obtain a good electrical property at relatively low deposition temperature with small thickness.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.77-81
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• 2010

The AZO thin films were deposited on the corning 1737 glass plate by the RF magnetron sputtering and effects of working pressure and oxygen contents on the electrical properties were investigated. XRD spectra showed a preferred orientation along the c-axis and a minimum FWHM for the 70mTorr. From the surface analysis (AFM), the number of crystal grain of AZO thin film increased as working pressure increased. The film deposited with 70mTorr of working pressure showed n-type semiconductor characteristic having suitable resistivity $-1.59{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}cm$, carrier concentration $-10.1{\times}10^{19}cm^{-3}$, and mobility $-4.35cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$ while other films by 7 mTorr, 20 mTorr of working pressure closed to metallic films. The films including the oxygen represent stoichiometric composition similar to the oxide. The transmittance of the film was over 85% in the visible light range regardless of the changes in working pressure and oxygen contents.