• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2010.11a
• /
• pp.55.1-55.1
• /
• 2010

Cost efficient and large area deposition of superior quality $Al_2O_3$ doped zinc oxide (AZO) films is instrumental in many of its applications including solar cell fabrication due to its numerous advantages over ITO films. In this study, AZO films were prepared by a highly efficient rotating cylindrical dc magnetron sputtering system using AZO target, which has a target material utilization above 80%, on glass substrates in argon ambient. A detailed analysis on the electrical, optical and structural characteristics of AZO thin films was carried out for solar cell application. The properties of films were found to critically depend on deposition parameters such as sputtering power, substrate temperature, working pressure, and thickness of the films. A low resistivity of ${\sim}5.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}-cm$ was obtained for films deposited at 2kW, keeping the pressure and substrate temperature constant at 3 mtorr and $230^{\circ}C$ respectively, mainly due to an increase in carrier mobility and large grain size which would reduce the grain boundary scattering. The increase in carrier mobility with power can be attributed to the columnar growth of AZO film with (002) preferred orientation as revealed by XRD analysis. The AZO films showed a high transparency of>87% in the visible wavelength region irrespective of deposition conditions. Our results offers a cost-efficient AZO film deposition method which can fabricate films with significant low resistivity and high transmittance that can find application in thin-film solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.45 no.12
• /
• pp.827-831
• /
• 2008

Spark plasma sintering (SPS) of AlN ceramics were carried out with ${Y_2}{O_3}$ as sintering additive at a sintering temperature $1,550{\sim}1,700^{\circ}C$. The effect of ${Y_2}{O_3}$ addition on sintering behavior and thermal conductivity of AlN ceramics was studied. ${Y_2}{O_3}$ added AlN showed higher densification rate than pure AlN noticeably, but the formation of yttrium aluminates phases by the solid-state reaction of ${Y_2}{O_3}$ and ${Al_2}{O_3}$ existed on AlN surface could delay the densification during the sintering process. The thermal conductivity of AlN specimens was promoted by the addition of ${Y_2}{O_3}$ up to 3 wt% in spite of the formation of YAG secondary phase in AlN grain boundaries because ${Y_2}{O_3}$ addition could reduced the oxygen contents in AlN lattice which is primary factor of thermal conductivity. However, the thermal conductivity rather decreased over 3 wt% addition because an immoderate formation of YAG phases in grain boundary could decrease thermal conductivity by a phonon scattering surpassing the contribution of ${Y_2}{O_3}$ addition.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.45 no.5
• /
• pp.276-279
• /
• 2008

In this research, properties of $N_2$-doped $Sb_2Te_3$ thin film were evaluated using 4-point probe, XRD and AFM. $Sb_2Te_3$ material has faster crystallization rate than $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$, but sheet resistance difference between amorphous and crystallization state is very low. This low sheet resistance difference decreases sensing margin in reading operation at PRAM device operation. Therefore, in order to overcome this weak point, $N_2$ gas was doped on $Sb_2Te_3$ thin film. Sheet resistance difference between amorphous and crystallized state of $N_2$-doped $Sb_2Te_3$ thin film showed about $10^4$ times higher than Un-doped $Sb_2Te_3$ thin film because of the grain boundary scattering.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2011.02a
• /
• pp.53-53
• /
• 2011

As the dimension of Cu interconnects has continued to reduce, its resistivity is expected to increase at the nanoscale due to increased surface and grain boundary scattering of electrons. To suppress increase of the resistivity in nanoscale interconnects, alloying Cu with other metal elements such as Al, Mn, and Ag is being considered to increase the mean free path of the drifting electrons. The formation of Al alloy with a slight amount of Cu broadly studied in the past. The study of Cu alloy including a very small Al fraction, by contrast, recently began. The formation of Cu-Al alloy is limited in wet chemical bath and was mainly conducted for fundamental studies by sputtering or evaporation system. However, these deposition methods have a limitation in production environment due to poor step coverage in nanoscale Cu metallization. In this work, gap-filling of Cu-Al alloy was conducted by cyclic MOCVD (metal organic chemical vapor deposition), followed by thermal annealing for alloying, which prevented an unwanted chemical reaction between Cu and Al precursors. To achieve filling the Cu-Al alloy into sub-100nm trench without overhang and void formation, furthermore, hydrogen plasma pretreatment of the trench pattern with Ru barrier layer was conducted in order to suppress of Cu nucleation and growth near the entrance area of the nano-scale trench by minimizing adsorption of metal precursors. As a result, superconformal gap-fill of Cu-Al alloy could be achieved successfully in the high aspect ration nanoscale trenches. Examined morphology, microstructure, chemical composition, and electrical properties of superfilled Cu-Al alloy will be discussed in detail.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.28 no.12
• /
• pp.852-856
• /
• 2015

In this study, we investigate the effect of high-energy ball milling on thermoelectric transport properties in double-filled $CoSb_3$ skutterudite ($In_{0.2}Yb_{0.1}Co_4Sb_{12}$). $In_{0.2}Yb_{0.1}Co_4Sb_{12}$ powders are milled using high-energy ball milling for different periods of time (0, 5, 10, and 20 min), and the milled powders are consolidated into bulk samples by spark plasma sintering. Microstructure analysis shows that the high-energy ball milled bulk samples are composed of nano- and micro-grains. Because the filling fractions are reduced in the bulk samples due to the kinetic energy of the high-energy ball milling, the carrier concentration of the bulk samples decreases with the ball milling time. Furthermore, the mobility of the bulk samples also decreases with the ball milling time due to enhanced grain boundary scattering of electrons. Reduction of electrical conductivity by ball milling has a decisive effect on thermoelectric transport in the bulk samples, power factor decreases with the ball milling time.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.453-457
• /
• 2007

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and Ga doped zinc oxide (GZO) with different thickness in range of 10nm to 100nm are prepared on glass substrate by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The structural and optical properties of the thin films is evaluated. The structural properties of ZnO and GZO are investigated by Tunneling Electron Microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optical properties are also investigated by UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer (200$\sim$1400nm). The much larger grain size of ZnO compared to GZO decreased the light scattering at the grain boundary and improved the transmittance. The transmittance of ZnO is higher than that of GZO through all of the ranges of wavelengths. In case of over 50nm, we found that the transmittance of ZnO is 20% higher than that of GZO.