Study of Large-Scale Aluminium-Doped Zinc Oxide Ceramic Targets Prepared by Slip Casting

Ling-Yun Han,Yong-Chun Shu

doi:10.1155/2016/6410848

Ling-Yun Han, Yong-Chun Shu

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/6410848

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Abstract

Aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO) ceramic green compacts at a size of 170 × 340 × 17 mm have been prepared by slip casting. An AZO slurry with good fluidity and viscosity was obtained when 1.2 wt% of dispersant was added, which indicates that the slurry prepared with micrometre particles is more suitable for slip casting. The densification and electrical properties of the AZO targets prepared by particles with different sizes were investigated after sintering from 1380 to 1460°C. The results showed that the relative density of the AZO target prepared with 45 nm particles could reach nearly 98% at 1380°C; the resistivity of the AZO target prepared with nanometre particles could be as low as 1.6 × 10−3 Ω·cm at 1400°C; and the average transmittance of the AZO film prepared with nanometre particles could reach a maximum value of 93.73% in the visible region at 250 W. In this study, the correlation between the density, resistivity, and grain growth of AZO ceramic green compacts was studied.

Highlights

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is regarded as a new type of n-type semiconductor material with a band gap of 3.36 eV
A number of studies have investigated dopants in ZnO, such as Bi, Mn, Cu, Sb, Pr, Cr, and Al [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Because of their low resistivity (80%), and low cost, aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO) films have been studied as potential new transparent conductive oxide films [9, 10]
Because sputtering is the main method of preparing AZO films, fabricating the sputtering target has become the most important step of the method [15]

Summary

Introduction

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is regarded as a new type of n-type semiconductor material with a band gap of 3.36 eV. A number of studies have investigated dopants in ZnO, such as Bi, Mn, Cu, Sb, Pr, Cr, and Al [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] Because of their low resistivity (80%), and low cost, aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO) films have been studied as potential new transparent conductive oxide films [9, 10]. We studied the effect of dispersant concentration on AZO slurries for slip casting prepared using different particle sizes and explored the effect of nanometre particles on the density, microstructure, and electrical properties of the AZO target. The transmittance of AZO films deposited at different sputtering powers was investigated

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusions