There is a need for the development of transparent conductive materials that are economical and environmentally friendly with exhibit low resistivity and high transmittance in the visible spectrum. In this study, the deposition rate and uniformity of Al-doped ZnO-thin films were improved by changing the Z-motion of the sputtering system. The deposition rate and the uniformity were determined to be 3.44 nm/min and 1.23%, respectively, under the 10 mm Z-motion condition. During O2 plasma treatment, the intrusion-type metal elements in the thin film were reduced, which contributed to an oxygen vacancy reduction in addition to structural stabilization. Moreover, the sheet resistance was more easily saturated.

Highly photosensitive and wide bandgap amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO_x:H) films were developed at low temperature ranges (100~150℃) with employing plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition by optimizing H₂/SiH₄ gas ratio and CO₂ flow. Photosensitivity more than 10⁵ and wide bandgap (1.81~1.85 eV) properties were used for making the a-SiO_x:H thin film solar cells, which exhibited a high open circuit voltage of 0.987 V at the substrate temperature of 100℃. In addition, a power conversion efficiency of 6.87% for the cell could be improved up to 7.77% by employing a new n-type nc-SiO_x:H/ZnO:Al/Ag triple back-reflector that offers better short circuit currents in the thin film photovoltaic devices.

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 H2O and O3 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 H2O was lower than the films grown using H2O and O3, by approximately two orders of magnitude. The differences in oxygen vacancy peak intensity of AZO films were correlated to the optical and electrical properties.

Hydrothermal synthesis technique could be carried out for growth of ZnO nanowires atrelatively low process temperature, and it could be freely utilized with various substrates for fabricationprocess of functional electronic devices. However, it has also a demerit of relatively slow growthcharacteristics of the resulting ZnO nanowires. In this paper, an external DC bias of positive and negative0.5 [V] was applied in the hydrothermal synthesis process for 2∼8 [h] to prepare ZnO nanowires on aseed layer of AZO with high electrical conductivity. Growth characteristics of the synthesized ZnOnanowires were analyzed by FE-SEM. Material property of the grown ZnO nanowires was examined byPL analysis. The ZnO nanowires grown with positive bias revealed distinctively enhanced growthcharacteristics, and they showed a typical material property of ZnO.

We investigated the effect of etching time on the surface roughness, and electrical and optical properties of ZnO and 2 wt% Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films. The ZnO and AZO films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technique. The etching experiment was carried out using a solution of 5% HCl at room temperature. The surface roughness was characterized by Atomic Force Microscopy. The electrical property was measured by Hall measurement system and 4-point probe. The optical property was characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy. After the wet chemical etching, the surface textures were obtained on the surface of the ZnO and AZO films. With the increase of etching time, the surface roughness (RMS) of the films increased and the transmittance of the films was observed to decrease. For the AZO film, a low resistivity of 1.0×10-3 Ω·cm was achieved even after the etching.

In this study, transparent conducting Al-doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) films with a thickness of 150 nm were prepared on corning glass substrate by the RF magnetron sputtering with using a Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO), (Al2o3: 2 wt%) target at room temperature. This study investigated the effect of rapid thermal annealing temperature and oxygen ambient on structural, electrical and optical properties of Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films. The films were annealed at temperatures ranging from 400 to 700℃ by using Rapid thermal equipment in oxygen ambient. The effect of RTA treatment on the structural properties were studied by x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. It is observed that the Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin film annealed at 500℃ at 5 minute oxygen ambient gas reveals the strongest XRD emission intensity and narrowest full width at half maximum among the temperature studied. The enhanced UV emission from the film annealed at 500℃ at 5 minute oxygen ambient gas is attributed to the improved crystalline quality of Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin film due to the effective relaxation of residual compressive stress and achieving maximum grain size.

We have studied structural, optical, and electrical properties of the Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films being usable in transparent conducting oxides. The AZO thin films were deposited on the corning 1737 glass plate by the RF magnetron sputtering system. To find optimal properties of AZO for transparent conducting oxides, the RF power in sputtering process was varied as 40 W, 60 W, and 80 W, respectively. As RF power increased, the crystallinity of AZO thin film was decreased, the optical bandgap of AZO thin film increased. The transmittance of the film was over 80% in the visible light range regardless of the changes in RF power. The measurement of Hall effect characterizes the whole thin film as n-type, and the electrical property was improved with increasing RF power. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of the AZO thin films were affected by Al dopant content in AZO thin film.