| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Transparent Conductors and Printable Electronics Focus Topic | Thursday Sessions |
| Session TC+EM+AS+TF+EN-ThM |
| Session: | Transparent Conductors and Devices |
| Presenter: | Y.L. Wu, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign |
| Authors: | Y.L. Wu, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign E. Ritz, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign J. Hong, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign T.S. Cho, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign D.N. Ruzic, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Aluminum-doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) is a material that has high electrical conductivity while being highly transparent at the same time. It could find many useful applications in our daily lives such as displays, mobile devices, solar cells, etc. Currently AZO films are considered as attractive alternatives to materials such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) due to its much cheaper cost and comparable high electrical conductivity. A process of depositing AZO film by dual DC magnetron system has been developed. Film thicknesses were measured to be about 300nm by stylus contact profilometer and transparency of greater than 90% in the visible range were measured with spectrophotometry methods. Film conductivities were in the order of 10-3Ohm-cm with the four-point probe method. By using a Dielectric Barrier Discharge operating at atmospheric pressure, conductivity of film can be further lowered. A 500mm x 30mm line source operating at a Nitrogen flow of 250L/min was used and ~0.4L/min Hydrogen gas was also introduced into the discharge system to create Hydrogen radicals. A 10%-15% decrease in electrical resistance was observed with no changes in the optical properties of the AZO films. The elemental composition of the film was measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the change of crystal structure after DBD post annealing was measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD).