We investigated the effect of ZnO buffer layer on the formation of ZnO thin film by ultrasonic assisted spray pyrolysis deposition. ZnO buffer layer was formed by wet solution method, which was repeated several times. Structural and optical properties of the ZnO thin films deposited on the ZnO buffer layers with various cycles and at various temperatures were investigated by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and photoluminescence spectrum analysis. The structural investigations showed that three-dimensional island shaped ZnO was formed on the bare Si substrate without buffer layers, while two-dimensional ZnO thin film was deposited on the ZnO buffer layers. In addition, structural and optical investigations showed that the crystalline quality of ZnO thin film was improved by introducing the buffer layers. This improvement was attributed to the modulation of the surface energy of the Si surface by the ZnO buffer layer, which finally resulted in a modification of the growth mode from three to two-dimensional.

The micron-sized indium zinc tin oxide (IZTO) particles were prepared by spray pyrolysis from aqueous precursor solution for indium, zinc, and tin and organic additives such as citric acid (CA) and ethylene glycol (EG) were added to aqueous precursor solution for indium, zinc, and tin. The obtained IZTO particles prepared by spray pyrolysis from the aqueous solution without organic additives had spherical and filled morphologies, whereas the IZTO particles obtained with organic additives had more hollow and porous morphologies. The micron-sized IZTO particles with organic additives were changed fully to nano-sized IZTO particles, whereas the micron-sized IZTO particles without organic additives were not changed fully to nano-sized IZTO particle after post-treatment at 700 °C for 2 hours and wet-ball milling for 24 hours. Surface resistances of micron-sized IZTO’s before post-heat treatment and wet-ball milling were much higher than those of nano-sized IZTO’s after post-heat treatment and wet-ball milling. From IZTO with composition of 80 wt. % In2O3, 10 wt. % ZnO, and 10 wt. % SnO2 which showed a smallest surface resistance IZTO after post-heat treatment and wet-ball milling, thin films were deposited on glass substrates by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering, and the electrical and optical properties were investigated.

In this study, an environment-friendly synthetic strategy to process zinc oxide nanocrystals is reported. The biosynthesis method used in this study is simple and cost-effective, with reduced solvent waste via the use of fruit peel extract as a natural ligation agent. The formation of ZnO nanocrystals using a rambutan peel extract was observed in this study. Rambutan peels has the ability to ligate zinc ions as a natural ligation agent, resulting in ZnO nanochain formation due to the presence of an extended polyphenolic system over the whole incubation period. Via transmission electron microscopy, successful formation of zinc oxide nanochains was confirmed. TEM observation revealed that the bioinspired ZnO nanocrystals were spherical and/or hexagonal particles with sizes between 50 and 100 nm.

We present an excellent detection for nitrogen monoxide (NO) gas using polycrystalline ZnO wire-like films synthesized via a simple method combined with sputtering of Zn metallic films and subsequent thermal oxidation of the sputtered Zn nanowire films in dry air. Structural and morphological characterization revealed that it would be possible to synthesize polycrystalline hexagonal wurtzite ZnO films of a wire-like nanostructure with widths of 100-150 nm and lengths of several microns by controlling the sputtering conditions. It was found from the gas sensing measurements that the ZnO wirelike thin film gas sensor showed a significantly high response, with a maximum value of 29.2 for 2 ppm NO at 200 oC, as well as a reversible fast response to NO with a very low detection limit of 50 ppb. In addition, the ZnO wire-like thin film gas sensor also displayed an NO-selective sensing response for NO, O2, H2, NH3, and CO gases. Our results illustrate that polycrystalline ZnO wire-like thin films are potential sensing materials for the fabrication of NO-sensitive high-performance gas sensors.

The effect of sintering temperature on the microstructure, electrical and dielectric properties of (V, Mn, Co, Dy, Bi)- codoped zinc oxide ceramics was investigated in this study. An increase in the sintering temperature increased the average grain size from 4.7 to 10.4 μm and decreased the sintered density from 5.47 to 5.37 g/cm3. As the sintering temperature increased, the breakdown field decreased greatly from 6027 to 1659 V/cm. The ceramics sintered at 900 oC were characterized by the highest nonlinear coefficient (36.2) and the lowest low leakage current density (36.4 μA/cm2). When the sintering temperature increased, the donor concentration of the semiconducting grain increased from 2.49 × 1017 to 6.16 × 1017/cm3, and the density of interface state increased from 1.34 × 1012 to 1.99 × 1012/cm2. The dielectric constant increased greatly from 412.3 to 1234.8 with increasing sintering temperature.

투명 전도성 산화물로서 알루미늄과 붕소가 함께 도핑된 아연산화물(AZOB)이 900℃에서 분무 열분해법에 의해 제조되었다. 얻어진 마이크론 크기의 AZOB 분말은 알루미늄, 붕소 및 아연의 수용액으로부터 얻어진다. 분무 열분해로 얻어진 마이크론 크기의 AZOB 분말은 700℃에서 두 시간동안의 후 소성 과정과 24 시간 동안의 볼 밀링을 통해 나노 크기의 AZOB으로 변환된다. AZOB을 구성하는 일차 입자의 크기를 Debye-Scherrer 식에 의해 계산하였고 압축된 AZOB 펠렛의 표면 저항을 측정하였다.

We report on the NO gas sensing properties of non-directional ZnO nanofibers synthesized using a typical electrospinning technique. These non-directional ZnO nanofibers were electrospun on an SiO2/Si substrate from a solution containing poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) and zinc nitrate hexahydrate dissolved in distilled water. Calcination processing of the ZnO/PVA composite nanofibers resulted in a random network of polycrystalline ZnO nanofibers of 50 nm to 100 nm in diameter. The diameter of the nanofibers was found to depend primarily on the solution viscosity; a proper viscosity was maintained by adding PVA to fabricate uniform ZnO nanofibers. Microstructural measurements using scanning electron microscopy revealed that our synthesized ZnO nanofibers after calcination had coarser surface morphology than those before calcination, indicating that the calcination processing was sufficient to remove organic contents. From the gas sensing response measurements for various NO gas concentrations in dry air at several working temperatures, it was found that gas sensors based on electrospun ZnO nanofibers showed quite good responses, exhibiting a maximum sensitivity to NO gas in dry air at an operating temperature of 200˚C. In particular, the non-directional electrospun ZnO nanofiber gas sensors were found to have a good NO gas detection limit of sub-ppm levels in dry air. These results illustrate that non-directional electrospun ZnO nanofibers are promising for use in low-cost, high-performance practical NO gas sensors.

We report on the NO gas sensing properties of Al-doped zinc oxide-carbon nanotube (ZnO-CNT) wire-like layered composites fabricated by coaxially coating Al-doped ZnO thin films on randomly oriented single-walled carbon nanotubes. We were able to wrap thin ZnO layers around the CNTs using the pulsed laser deposition method, forming wire-like nanostructures of ZnO-CNT. Microstructural observations revealed an ultrathin wire-like structure with a diameter of several tens of nm. Gas sensors based on ZnO-CNT wire-like layered composites were found to exhibit a novel sensing capability that originated from the genuine characteristics of the composites. Specifically, it was observed by measured gas sensing characteristics that the gas sensors based on ZnO-CNT layered composites showed a very high sensitivity of above 1,500% for NO gas in dry air at an optimal operating temperature of 200˚C; the sensors also showed a low NO gas detection limit at a sub-ppm level in dry air. The enhanced gas sensing properties of the ZnO-CNT wire-like layered composites are ascribed to a catalytic effect of Al elements on the surface reaction and an increase in the effective surface reaction area of the active ZnO layer due to the coating of CNT templates with a higher surface-to-volume ratio structure. These results suggest that ZnO-CNT composites made of ultrathin Al-doped ZnO layers uniformly coated around carbon nanotubes can be promising materials for use in practical high-performance NO gas sensors.

Zinc oxide as an optoelectronic device material was studied to utilize its wide band gap of 3.37 eV and high exciton biding energy of 60 meV. Using anti-site nitrogen to generate p-type zinc oxide has shown a deep acceptor level and low solubility. To increase the nitrogen solubility in zinc oxide, group 13 elements (aluminum, gallium, and indium) was co-added to nitrogen. The effect of aluminum on nitrogen solubility in a 3×3×2 zinc oxide super cell containing 72 atoms was investigated using density functional theory with hybrid functionals of Heyd, Scuseria, and Ernzerhof (HSE). Aluminum and nitrogen were substituted for zinc and oxygen sites in the super cell, respectively. The band gap of the undoped super cell was calculated to be 3.36 eV from the density of states, and was in good agreement with the experimentally obtained value. Formation energies of a nitrogen molecule and nitric oxide in the zinc oxide super cell in zinc-rich conditions were lower than those in oxygen-rich conditions. When the number of nitrogen molecules near the aluminum increased from one to four in the super cell, their formation energies decreased to approach the valence band maximum to some degree. However, the acceptor level of nitrogen in zinc oxide with the co-incorporation of aluminum was still deep.

We report the structural characterization of BixZn1-xO thin films grown on c-plane sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. By increasing the Bi flux during the growth process, BixZn1-xO thin films with various Bi contents (x = 0~13.17 atomic %) were prepared. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements revealed the formation of Bi-oxide phase in (Bi)ZnO after increasing the Bi content. However, it was impossible to determine whether the formed Bi-oxide phase was the monoclinic structure α-Bi2O3 or the tetragonal structure β-Bi2O3 by means of XRD θ-2θ measurements, as the observed diffraction peaks of the 2θ value at ~28 were very close to reflection of the (012) plane for the monoclinic structure α-Bi2O3 at 28.064 and the reflection of the (201) plane for the tetragonal structure β-Bi2O3 at 27.946. By means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) using a diffraction pattern analysis and a high-resolution lattice image, it was finally determined as the monoclinic structure α-Bi2O3 phase. To investigate the distribution of the Bi and Bi-oxide phases in BiZnO films, elemental mapping using energy dispersive spectroscopy equipped with TEM was performed. Considering both the XRD and the elemental mapping results, it was concluded that hexagonal-structure wurtzite BixZn1-xO thin films were grown at a low Bi content (x = ~2.37 atomic %) without the formation of α-Bi2O3. However, the increased Bi content (x = 4.63~13.17 atomic %) resulted in the formation of the α-Bi2O3 phase in the wurtzite (Bi)ZnO matrix.

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (nZnO) are used in a various range, including ceramic manufacture, photocatalysis, UV filters, and the food industry. However, little is known about the effects of micro- and nano-particles during mouse embryo organogenesis. To determine whether ZnO affects size-dependent anomalies during embryonic organogenesis, mouse embryos were cultured for two days with 300 ug/ml micro ZnO (mZnO;80±25 μm) and nZnO (< 100 nm) and the developmental changes were then investigated. Quantity of Zn by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry analysis, and expression patterns of various antioxidant enzymes in the embryos were investigated. Embryos exposed to mZnO or nZnO exhibited severe retardation of growth and development. In embryos exposed to mZnO and nZnO, yolk sac diameter, crown-rump length, and head length were significantly diminished. The morphological parameters, including yolk sac circulation, allantois, flexion, heart, hindbrain, midbrain, forebrain, otic system, optic system, branchial bars, maxillary process, mandibular process, olfactory system, caudal neural tube, forelimb, hindlimb, and somites in mZnO and nZnO-treated groups were significantly decreased. Zn absorption of the nZnO-treated group was significantly higher than that of the mZnO-treated group. Significantly decreased levels of CuZn-SOD, Mn-SOD, cGPx, and PHGPx mRNA were observed in the ZnO-treated group. In addition, antioxidant enzyme mRNA expressions of the nZnO group were significantly diminished, less than those of the mZnO treated group. These findings indicate that 300 ug/ml ZnO showed abnormality and nZnO may have a more severe effect than mZnO in developing embryos.

In this study, the effects of an annealed buffer layer with different thickness on heterojunction diodes based on the ZnO/ZnO/p-Si(111) systems were reported. The effects of an annealed buffer layer with different thickness on the structural, optical, and electrical properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) films on p-Si(111) were also studied. Before zinc oxide (ZnO) deposition, different thicknesses of ZnO buffer layer, 10 nm, 30 nm, 50 nm and 70 nm, were grown on p-Si(111) substrates using a radio-frequency sputtering system; samples were subsequently annealed at 700˚C for 10 minutes in N2 in a horizontal thermal furnace. Zinc oxide (ZnO) films with a width of 280nm were also deposited using a radio-frequency sputtering system on the annealed ZnO/p-Si (111) substrates at room temperature; samples were subsequently annealed at 700˚C for 30 minutes in N2. In this experiment, the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films were studied by XRD (X-ray diffraction), and room temperature PL (photoluminescence) measurements, respectively. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics were measured with a semiconductor parameter analyzer. The thermal tensile stress was found to decrease with increasing buffer layer thickness. Among the ZnO/ZnO/p-Si(111) diodes fabricated in this study, the sample that was formed with the condition of a 50 nm thick ZnO buffer layer showed a strong c-axis preferred orientation and I-V characteristics suitable for a heterojunction diode.

For application of nano-sized material in various fields, toxicity evaluation of nano-sized material is important. In the current study, a suspension of 50 nm-sized zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles at a dose of 1 g/kg body weight was injected intraperitonially into mice in order to identify the toxicity of ZnO nanoparticles. After 24 h, the blood and liver were taken and analyzed. According to the results of hematological analysis, white blood cell (p<0.001), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (p<0.001), and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (p<0.05) in the ZnO nanoparticle treated group showed a significant decrease, compared to the control group. In serum biochemistry analysis, alanine aminotransferase (p<0.001) and aspartate amino-transferase (p<0.05) also induced a significant increase in the ZnO nanoparticle treated group, compared with the control group. In the histopathological examination, liver in mice treated with ZnO nanoparticles showed edema and degeneration in hepatocytes. Therefore, it is concluded that the liver is the target organ for 50 nm ZnO intraperitoneal exposure. In the future, greater attention should be paid to the potential toxicity induced by various routes and doses of ZnO nanoparticles.

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped ZnO thin films were deposited using a sol-gel process. In this study, the important deposition parameters were investigated thoroughly to determine the appropriate procedures to grow large area thin films with low resistivity and high transparency at low cost for device applications. The doping concentration of aluminum was adjusted in a range from 1 to 4 mol% by controlling the precursor concentration. The annealing temperatures for the pre-heat treatment and post-heat treatment was 250˚C and 400-600˚C, respectively. The SEM images show that Al doped and undoped ZnO films were quite uniform and compact. The XRD pattern shows that the Al doped ZnO film has poorer crystallinity than the undoped films. The crystal quality of Al doped ZnO films was improved with an increase of the annealing temperature to 600˚C. Although the structure of the aluminum doped ZnO films did not have a preferred orientation along the (002) plane, these films had high transmittance (> 87%) in the visible region. The absorption edge was observed at approximately 370 nm, and the absorption wavelength showed a blue-shift with increasing doping concentration. The ZnO films annealed at 500˚C showed the lowest resistivity at 1 mol% Al doping.

Oxide semiconductors Thin-film transistors are an exemplified one owing to its excellent ambient stability and optical transparency. In particular zinc oxide (ZnO) has been reported because It has stability in air, a high electron mobility, transparency and low light sensitivity, compared to any other materials. For this reasons, ZnO TFTs have been studied actively. Furthermore, we expected that would be satisfy the demands of flexible display in new generation. In order to do that, ZnO TFTs must be fabricated that flexible substrate can sustain operating temperature. So, In this paper we have studied low-temperature process of zinc oxide(ZnO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on silicon nitride (SiNx)/cross-linked poly-vinylphenol (C-PVP) as gate dielectric. TFTs based on oxide fabricated by Low-temperature process were similar to electrical characteristics in comparison to conventional TFTs. These results were in comparison to device with SiNx/low-temperature C-PVP or SiNx/conventional C-PVP. The ZnO TFTs fabricated by low-temperature process exhibited a field-effect mobility of 0.205 cm2/Vs, a thresholdvoltage of 13.56 V and an on/off ratio of 5.73×106. As a result, We applied experimental for flexible PET substrate and showed that can be used to ZnO TFTs for flexible application.

ZnO nanostructures were grown on an Au seed layer by a hydrothermal method. The Au seed layer was deposited by ion sputter on a Si (100) substrate, and then the ZnO nanostructures were grown with different precursor concentrations ranging from 0.01 M to 0.3M at 150˚C and different growth temperatures ranging from 100˚C to 250˚C with 0.3 M of precursor concentration. FE-SEM (field-emission scanning electron microscopy), XRD (X-ray diffraction), and PL (photoluminescence) were carried out to investigate the structural and optical properties of the ZnO nanostructures. The different morphologies are shown with different growth conditions by FE-SEM images. The density of the ZnO nanostructures changed significantly as the growth conditions changed. The density increased as the precursor concentration increased. The ZnO nanostructures are barely grown at 100˚C and the ZnO nanostructure grown at 150˚C has the highest density. The XRD pattern shows the ZnO (100), ZnO (002), ZnO (101) peaks, which indicated the ZnO structure has a wurtzite structure. The higher intensity and lower FWHM (full width at half maximum) of the ZnO peaks were observed at a growth temperature of 150˚C, which indicated higher crystal quality. A near band edge emission (NBE) and a deep level emission (DLE) were observed at the PL spectra and the intensity of the DLE increased as the density of the ZnO nanostructures increased.

This paper presents a new method for the improvement of color temperature without the change of the driving scheme using transparent dielectric layers with various metal oxides (CeO2, Co3O4, CuO, Fe2O3, MnO2, NiO) in plasma display panels (PDP). In this study, we fabricated ZnO-B2O3-SiO2-Al2O3 glasse with various metal oxides and examined the optical properties of these glasses. As the metal oxides were added to the glasses, the visible transmittances of the dielectric layers decreased and the transmittances in special wavelength regions were reduced at different rates. The change of the transmittance in each wavelength range induced the variation of the visible emission spectra and the change of the color temperature in the PDP. The addition of Co3O4 and CuO slightly decreased the intensity of the blue light, but the intensities of the green and the red light were significantly decreased. Therefore, the color temperature can be improved from 6087K to 7378K and 7057K, respectively.

We have demonstrated the feasibility of using electrospinning method to fabricate long and continuous composite nanofiber sheets of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) incorporated with zinc oxide (ZnO). Such PAN/ZnO composite nanofiber sheets represent an important step toward utilizing carbon nanofibers (CNFs) as materials to achieve remarkably enhanced physico-chemical properties. In an attempt to derive these advantages, we have used a variety of techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) to obtain quantitative data on the materials. The CNFs produced are in the diameter range of 100 to 350 nm after carbonization at 1000℃. Electrical conductivity of the random CNFs was increased by increasing the concentration of ZnO. A dramatic improvement in porosity and specific surface area of the CNFs was a clear evidence of the novelty of the method used. This study indicated that the optimal ZnO concentration of 3 wt% is enough to produce CNFs having enhanced electrical and physico-chemical properties.

우리는 마이카, boron nitride, bismuthoxychloride와 같은 판상 분체에 ZnO 나노입자를 코팅한 고 기능성 무기 분체를 합성하였다. 본 실험에서 우리는 수열침전법을 이용하여 합성 분체를 합성하였다. 출발물질은 ZnCl2를 사용하였고 침전제로는 hexamethylenetetramine(HMT)와 urea를 사용하였다. 본 실험의 반응변수로는 출발물질의 농도, 침전제 및 반응온도를 변화시켜 실험하였다. 합성물의 형태, 결정성 및 UV-차단능은FE-SEM, XRD, FT-IR, TGA-DTA, in vitro SPF 테스트를 활용해 분석하였다. 본 실험의 결과, 나토입자 크기를 갖는 ZnO는 동일한 최적의 합성조건하에서 다양한 판상 분체의 종류에 관계없이 균일하게 코팅되었다.