• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.351-355
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• 2010

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped ZnO thin films were deposited using a sol-gel process. In this study, the important deposition parameters were investigated thoroughly to determine the appropriate procedures to grow large area thin films with low resistivity and high transparency at low cost for device applications. The doping concentration of aluminum was adjusted in a range from 1 to 4 mol% by controlling the precursor concentration. The annealing temperatures for the pre-heat treatment and post-heat treatment was $250^{\circ}C$ and 400-$600^{\circ}C$, respectively. The SEM images show that Al doped and undoped ZnO films were quite uniform and compact. The XRD pattern shows that the Al doped ZnO film has poorer crystallinity than the undoped films. The crystal quality of Al doped ZnO films was improved with an increase of the annealing temperature to $600^{\circ}C$. Although the structure of the aluminum doped ZnO films did not have a preferred orientation along the (002) plane, these films had high transmittance (> 87%) in the visible region. The absorption edge was observed at approximately 370 nm, and the absorption wavelength showed a blue-shift with increasing doping concentration. The ZnO films annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ showed the lowest resistivity at 1 mol% Al doping.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.103-103
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• 2011

The epitaxial Cu-doped ZnO and pure ZnO thin films were grown on Al2O3 (0001) substrates by RF sputtering method. The structures and crystallographic orientations were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. From the XRD pattern, it is observed that peak positions shift towards higher $2{\theta}$ value with Cu doping. The ${\omega}$-scan measurements at the (0002) diffraction peak for these samples reveal that the full-widths at half-maxima (FWHMs) are about $0.017-0.019^{\circ}$, which indicate a good c-axis orientation of the Zn1-xCuxO films. From phi-scan, all of the Zn1-xCuxO films were epitaxially grown. EXAFS measurements also demonstrated that Cu incorporated into a Zn-atom position substitutionally. All the results confirmed that copper ion were well incorporated into the ZnO lattices by substituting Zn sites without changing the wurtzite structure and no secondary phase existed in Cu-doped ZnO thin films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.105-105
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• 2011

ZnO is a promising material since it could be applied to many fields such as solar cells, laser diodes, thin films transistors and gas sensors. ZnO has a wide and direct band gap for about 3.37 eV at room temperature and a high exciton binding energy of 60 meV. In particular, ZnO features high sensitivity to toxic and combustible gas such as CO, NOX, so on. The development of gas sensors to monitor the toxic and combustible gases is imperative due to the concerns for enviromental pollution and the safety requirements for the industry. In this study, we investigated the effect of substrate temperature and post-annealing on structural and electrical properties of ZnO thin films. ZnO thin films were deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at various temperatures at from room temperature to $600^{\circ}C$. After that, post-annealing were performed at $600^{\circ}C$. To inspect the structural properties of the deposited ZnO thin films, X-ray diffraction (XRD) was carried out. For gas sensors, the morphology of the films is dominant factor since it is deeply related with the film surface area. Therefore, the atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) were used to observe the surface of the ZnO thin films. Furthermore, we analyzed the electrical properties by using a Hall measurement system.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.617-624
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• 2000

Zinc Oxide(ZnO) thin films on Si(100) substrate were deposited by RF magnetron reactive sputtering. The charcteristics of ZnO thin films on argon/oxygen(Ar/O$_2$)gas ratios RF power and substrate temperature were investigated by XRD, SEM, and AFM analyses. C-axis preferred orientation resistivity and surface roughness highly depended on Ar/O$_2$gas ratios. The resistivity of ZnO thin films rapidly increased with increasing oxygen ratio and the resistivity value of 9$\times$10$^{7}$ $\Omega$cm was obtained at a working pressure of 10 mTorr with Ar/O$_2$=50/50. The surface roughness was also improved with increasing oxygen ratio and the ZnO films deposited with Ar/O$_2$=50/50 showed the excellent roughness value of 28.7$\AA$.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 2006

Metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCYD) techniques have been applied to fabricate semiconducting ZnO thin films and nanostructures, which are promising for novel optoelectronic device applications using their unique multifunctional properties. The growth and characterization of ZnO thin films on Si and $SiO_2$ substrates by MOCYD as fundamental study to realize ZnO nanostructures was carried out. The precise control of initial nucleation processes was found to be a key issue for realizing high quality epitaxial layers on the substrates. In addition, fabrication and characterization of ZnO nanodots with low-dimensional characteristics have been investigated to establish nanostructure blocks for ZnO-based nanoscale device application. Systematic realization of self- and artificially-controlled ZnO nanodots on $SiO_2/Si$ substrates was proposed and successfully demonstrated utilizing MOCYD in addition with a focused ion beam technique.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.24-28
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• 2007

The etching of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films has been studied using a high density plasma in a $Cl_2/Ar$ gas. The etch characteristics of ZnO thin films were systematically investigated on varying $Cl_2$ concentration, coil rf power, dc-bias voltage, and gas pressure. With increasing $Cl_2$ concentration, the etch rate of ZnO thin film increased, the redeposition around the etched patterns decreased but the sidewall slope of the etched patterns slanted. As the coil rf power and dc-bias voltage increased, the etch rates of ZnO thin films increased and etch profiles of ZnO thin films were improved. With increasing gas pressure, the etch rate of ZnO thin films slightly increased but little change in etch profile was observed. Based on these results, the optimal etching conditions of ZnO thin film were selected. Finally, the etching of ZnO thin films with a high degree of anisotropy of approximately $75^{\circ}{\sim}80^{\circ}$ without the redepositions and residues was successfully achieved at the etching conditions of 20% $Cl_2$ concentration, coil rf power of 1000 W, dc-bias voltage of 400 V, and gas pressure of 5 mTorr.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.102-105
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• 2011

This work describes the characteristics of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films formed on a polycrystalline (poly) 3C-SiC buffer layer using a sol-gel process. The deposited ZnO films were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) spectra. ZnO thin films grown on the poly 3C-SiC buffer layer had a nanoparticle structure and porous film. The effects of post-annealing on ZnO film were also studied. The PL spectra at room temperature confirmed the crystal quality and optical properties of ZnO thin films formed on the 3C-SiC buffer layer were improved due to close lattice mismatch in the ZnO/3C-SiC interface.

• Korean Journal of Crystallography
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.175-182
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• 1996

ZnO thin films were deposited on Corning 7059 glass substrates to study fundamental properties of films. According to the experimental results, (002) preferred ZnO thin films were grown by purging Ar/O2 mixed gas, but not without oxygen gas. The structure and the orientation of ZnO thin films were much affected by the substrate temperature and rf power. High quality ZnO films were obtained by increasing their values. Optimum deposition parameters were : 300W rf power, 300℃ substrate temperature, Ar/O2=70/30. To characterize SAW propagation properties, IDT was fabricated by etching Al films deposited on diamond/Si wafer with RIE. Measured λ(wavelength) was 24μm and experimental results were well matched with simulation. Center frequency was 250MHz, and the calculated phase velocity of ZnO/ diamond structure was about 6000m/s.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.58-61
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• 2010

This paper describes the fabrication and characteristics of NO sensor using ZnO thin film by RF magnetron sputter system. The sensitivity, working temperature, and response time of sputtered pure ZnO thin film and added catalysts such as Pt, Pd, Al, Ti on those films were measured and analyzed. The sensitivity of pure ZnO thin film at working temperature of $300^{\circ}C$ is 0.875 in NO gas concentration of 0.046 ppm. At same volume of the gas in chamber, measuring sensitivity of 1.87 at $250^{\circ}C$ was the case of Pt/ZnO thin film. The ZnO thin films added with catalyst materials were showed higher sensitivity, lower working temperature and faster adsorption characteristics to NO gas than pure ZnO thin film.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.760-765
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• 2014

MgZnO has attracted a lot of attention for flexible device. In the flexible substrate, the crystal structure of the thin films as well as the surface morphology is not good. Therefore, in this study, we studied on the effects of the oxygen pressure on the structure and crystallinity of $Mg_{0.3}Zn_{0.7}O$ thin films deposited on PES substrate by using pulsed laser deposition. We used X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy in order to observe the structural characteristics of $Mg_{0.3}Zn_{0.7}O$ thin films. The crystallinity of $Mg_{0.3}Zn_{0.7}O$ thin films with increasing temperature was improved, Grain size and RMS of the films were increased. UV-visible spectrophotometer was used to get the band gap energy and transmittance. $Mg_{0.3}Zn_{0.7}O$ thin films showed high transmittance over 90% in the visible region. As increased working pressure from 30 mTorr to 200 mTorr, the bandgap energy of $Mg_{0.3}Zn_{0.7}O$ thin film were decreased from 3.59 eV to 3.50 eV.