| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology | Thursday Sessions |
| Session PS-ThA |
| Session: | Plasma Processing of Nanoparticles and Nanomaterials |
| Presenter: | Subong Jin, NU-SKKU Joint institute for plasma nano materials, Republic of Korea |
| Authors: | J.G. Han, NU-SKKU Joint Institute for Plasma-Nano Materials, Republic of Korea S.B. Jin, NU-SKKU Joint institute for plasma nano materials, Republic of Korea B.B. Sahu, NU-SKKU Joint Institute for Plasma Nano Materials, Republic of Korea J.B. Kim, NU-SKKU Joint Institute for Plasma Nano Materials, Republic of Korea K. Takeda, Plasma Nanotechnology Research Center, Japan M. Hori, Plasma Nanotechnology Research Center, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Al doped ZnO(AZO) film has been attracting as one of promising candidate film replacing ITO film for transparent conductive oxide film of next generation flexible digital electronics devices. The relatively low resistivity and transparency of AZO film deposited at low temperature are still hurdles to overcome for replacing ITO film even though its unique advantages in low cost and high toughness over those of ITO film. It is well known that resistivity is closely associated with carrier concentration and mobility which are controlled by stoichiometry, binding energy of atoms and lattice defects of film including oxygen vacancy as well as Al replacement in Zn atom sites.
The control of those atomistic structure and lattice defects is affected by surface energy accumulated with atoms and molecules deposited at top surface layer during film nucleation and growth depending on process parameters during deposition process. The surface energy is mostly comprised of kinetic energy of neutrals, electronic energy of activated neutral molecule and atoms and ions as well as flux density. We have investigated effect of those atomic and molecular level energy analysis on structure formation and related electrical property changes by in-situ diagnostics during sputtering process under confirmal confined magnetic field. The kinetic energy and flux of sputtered atoms are controlled by independent variation of power density for direct sputtering and in-direct sputtering targets on polymer substrate at low temperature below 100 C. Optical emission spectroscopy and radical diagnostics as well as Langmuir probe analysis have been performed to measure plasma parameters. Carrier concentration and mobility have been analyzed depending on microstructure changes including binding energy of atoms and Al replacement of Zn site etc.. The resistivity is significantly reduced with atomic level nano process control and can be reached less than 4E-4 at low temperature.
This paper discusses on fundamental mechanism of film nucleation and growth with top surface energy accumulation with atomic and molecular energy diagnostics for AZO film synthesis by magnetron sputtering, and then illustrate control of resistivity associated with control of carrier concentration and mobility.