Investigating the electrical and thermal properties of Cu and Al-doped ZnO thick films using the screen-printing technique for thermal resistance applications

Abstract

The important properties of prepared Zinc Oxide (ZnO) thick films were investigated. The electrical and thermal properties of ZnO thick films were measured and analyzed using the MATLAB simulation tool. On a glass substrate, thick films of pure ZnO as well as ZnO doped with Cu and Al materials were fabricated using the screen-printing technique. The electrical parameters were calculated using the half-bridge approach to determine the unknown resistance, change in current, and voltage. The half-bridge circuit having a 50 M Ω reference resistance with 30 V excitation voltage. The thermocouple transducer (K type) was used to measure the heating and cooling temperature between 40 °C to 370 °C. The measured maximum TCR values are 0.0095 ppm/°C for pure ZnO film, 0.0068 ppm/°C for Cu-doped ZnO film, and 0.0123 ppm/°C for Al-doped ZnO film. The maximum measured resistance values are 5.9 × 107 Ω for pure ZnO film, 5.9 × 107 Ω for Cu-doped ZnO film, and 5.9 × 107 Ω for Al-doped ZnO film. Using MATLAB simulation, it was possible to observe key factors including the activation energy, unknown resistance, IV characteristics, thermal properties, temperature coefficient resistance (TCR) and resistive linear behavior of the ZnO films.