A study of the annealing atmosphere effects on the electrical properties of graphene-incorporated direct-patternable ZnO thin films

Abstract

An improvement in the electrical properties of the films is absolutely required for the application of ZnO thin film in electrical devices. And the conventional dry etching process is accompanied by the generation of physical defects, degradation of the properties. The electrical property of direct-patternable, graphene-incorporated ZnO thin film prepared by photochemical solution deposition was improved by N2 atmosphere annealing. Direct-patterning of graphene-incorporated ZnO thin films by photochemical solution deposition was performed without a photoresist or etching process. The transmittance of graphene-incorporated ZnO thin films was similar to ZnO thin film. The transmittance of ZnO thin film was unaffected by annealing atmosphere such as air or N2. The incorporation of graphene slightly decreased the crystallinity of the ZnO thin films and annealing atmosphere did not affect to the crystallinity of ZnO thin films. The resistivity was decreased due to the mobility enhancement because of the π-bond nature of the graphene surface. In addition, N2 atmosphere annealing decreased the resistivity of ZnO thin film than O2 atmosphere annealing due to decreasing of oxidation on the surface. These results suggest that a micro-patterned system can be simply fabricated at low cost and the electrical properties of ZnO thin films can be improved by graphene incorporation and N2 atmosphere annealing.