Various kinds of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures, such as ZnO nanowires, ZnO nanobelts, ZnO nanosheets, and ZnO nanorods are promising building blocks for nanoscale systems. However, to precisely control the size, shape, and to make a controlled assembly of synthesized ZnO nanostructures are major diffi culties in the development of bottom-up devices. To overcome the challenge regarding reproducibility and positioning, a new method is proposed, deep ultra-violet (DUV) direct photo-patterning, to create ZnO microand nanostructures.A sol-gel formulation sensitive to DUV light and based on zinc methacrylate precursor is developed, and the photoreactions of zinc methacrylate under DUV light are carefully investigated by in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry, in situ FTIR, and XPS analysis. Then, the sol-gel solution is used as a negative tone resist in DUV lithography to evaluate its performance in producing high-resolution patterns. The results indicate that small patterns from micro-to nanoscale can be obtained in a simple and direct way.
The inverted organic solar cell was fabricated by using sol-gel indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) as the electron-transport layer. The IGZO precursor solution was deposited by blade coating with simultaneous substrate heating at 120 °C from the bottom and hot wind from above. Uniform IGZO film of around 30 nm was formed after annealing at 400 °C. Using the blend of low band-gap polymer poly[(4,8-bis-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-benzo(1,2-b:4,5-b’)dithiophene)-2,6-diyl-alt- (4-(2-ethylhexanoyl)-thieno [3,4-b]thiophene-)-2-6-diyl)] (PBDTTT-C-T) and [6,6]-Phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester ([70]PCBM) as the active layer for the inverted organic solar cell, an efficiency of 6.2% was achieved with a blade speed of 180 mm/s for the IGZO. The efficiency of the inverted organic solar cells was found to depend on the coating speed of the IGZO films, which was attributed to the change in the concentration of surface OH groups. Compared to organic solar cells of conventional structure using PBDTTT-C-T: [70]PCBM as active layer, the inverted organic solar cells showed significant improvement in thermal stability. In addition, the chemical composition, as well as the work function of the IGZO film at the surface and inside can be tuned by the blade speed, which may find applications in other areas like thin-film transistors.
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