• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.109-124
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• 2023

For decades, sputtering as a physical vapor deposition (PVD) method has been a widely used technique for film coating processes. The sputtering enables oxides, metals, alloys, nitrides, etc to be deposited on a wide variety of substrates from silicon wafers to polymer substrates. Meanwhile, transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) have played important roles as electrodes in electrical applications such as displays, sensors, solar cells, and thin-film transistors. TCO films fabricated through a sputtering process have a higher quality leading to an improved device performance than other films prepared with other methods. In this review, we discuss the mechanism of sputtering deposition and detail the TCO materials. Related technologies (processing conditions, materials, and applications) are introduced for electrical applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.144-144
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• 2006

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.145-151
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• 2014

Solution-based Sb-doped $SnO_2$ (ATO) transparent conductive oxides using a low-temperature process were fabricated by an electrospray technique followed by spin coating. We demonstrated their structural, chemical, morphological, electrical, and optical properties by means of X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Hall effect measurement system, and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. In order to investigate optimum electrical and optical properties at low-temperature annealing, we systemically coated two layer, four layer, and six layers of ATO sol-solution using spin-coating on the electrosprayed ATO thin films. The resistivity and optical transmittance of the ATO thin films decreased as the thickness of ATO sol-layer increased. Then, the ATO thin films with two sol-layers exhibited superb figure of merit compared to the other samples. The performance improvement in a low temperature process ($300^{\circ}C$) can be explained by the effect of enhanced carrier concentration due to the improved densification of the ATO thin films causing the optimum sol-layer coating. Therefore, the solution-based ATO thin films prepared at $300^{\circ}C$C exhibited the superb electrical (${\sim}7.25{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$) and optical transmittance (~83.1 %) performances.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.378-382
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• 2003

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCI (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 md 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.391-394
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• 2002

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 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 (0.9 mTorr) and high substrate temperatures ($\leq$30$0^{\circ}C$), 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.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.43.1-43.1
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.24.2-24.2
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• 2008

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.11
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• pp.2214-2218
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• 2009

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) has been considered as a possible alternative to current silicon based p-n junction photovoltaic devices due to its advantages of high efficiency, simple fabrication process and low production cost. Numerous researches for high efficient DSC in the various fields are under way even now. Among them, the compact layer, which prevents the back electron transfer between transparent conductive oxides and the redox electrolyte, is fabricated by various methods such as a ZnO dip-coating, $TiCl_4$ dip-coating, and Ti sputtering. In this study, we tried to fabricate the $TiO_2$ compact layer by the spin-coating method using aqueous $TiCl_4$ solution. The effect of the spin-coating method was checked as compared with conventional dip-coating method. As a result, DSC with a spin-coated compact layer had 33.4% and 6% better efficiency than standard DSC and DSC with a dip-coated compact layer.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.170-174
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• 2023

Nickel oxide is a nonstoichiometric transparent conductive oxide with p-type conductivity, a wide-band energy gap of 3.4~4.0 eV, and excellent chemical stability, making it a very important candidate as a material for bipolar devices. P-type conductivity in Transparent Conductive Oxides (TCO) is controlled by the oxygen vacancy concentration. During the TCO film deposition process, additional oxygen diffusing into the NiO structure causes the formation of Ni 3p ions and Ni vacancies. This eventually affects the hole concentration of the p-type oxide thin film. In this work, the surface morphology and the electrical characteristics were confirmed in accordance with the annealing atmosphere of the nickel oxide thin film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.382.2-382.2
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• 2014

We explain a method to fabricate multi-layered transparent conductive films (TCF) using graphene oxide (GO), copper powder and polyurethane (PU) solution. The flexible graphene nanosheets (GNSs) serve as nanoscale connection between conductive copper nanoparticles (CuNps) and PU nanofibers, resulting in a highly flexible TCF. To fabricate conductive films with high transmittance, polyurethane (PU) nanofibers were used for a conductive network consisting of CuNps and GNSs (CuNps-GNSs). In this experiment, copper powder and graphene oxides were mixed in deionized water with the ultrasonication for 2 h. NaBH4 solution is used as a reduction agents of CuNps and GNSs (CuNps-GNSs) under a nitrogen atmosphere in the oil bath at 100% for 24 h to mixed. The purified and dispersed CuNp-GNS were obtained in deionized water, and diluted to a 10wt.% based on the contents of GNSs. Polyurethane (PU) nanofibers on a PET substrate were formed by electrospinning method. PET slides coated with the PU nanofibers were immersed into CuNp-GNS solution for several second, rinsed briefly in deionized water, and dried to obtain self-assembled CuNp-GNS/PU films. The morphology of the multi-layered films were characterized with a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM, Hitachi S-4700) and atomic force microscope (AFM, PSIA XE-100). The electrical property was analysed by the I-V measurement system and the optical property was measured by the UV/VIS spectroscopy.