• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.254-254
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• 2016

Tin dioxide (SnO2) thin film is one of the most important n-type semiconducting materials having a high transparency and chemical stability. Due to their favorable properties, it has been widely used as a base materials in the transparent conducting substrates, gas sensors, and other various electronic applications. Up to now, SnO2 thin film has been extensively studied by a various deposition techniques such as RF magnetron sputtering, sol-gel process, a solution process, pulsed laser deposition (PLD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and atomic layer deposition (ALD) [1-6]. Among them, ALD or plasma-enhanced ALD (PEALD) has recently been focused in diverse applications due to its inherent capability for nanotechnologies. SnO2 thin films can be prepared by ALD or PEALD using halide precursors or using various metal-organic (MO) precursors. In the literature, there are many reports on the ALD and PEALD processes for depositing SnO2 thin films using MO precursors [7-8]. However, only ALD-SnO2 processes has been reported for halide precursors and PEALD-SnO2 process has not been reported yet. Herein, therefore, we report the first PEALD process of SnO2 thin films using SnCl4 and oxygen plasma. In this work, the growth kinetics of PEALD-SnO2 as well as their physical and chemical properties were systemically investigated. Moreover, some promising applications of this process will be shown at the end of presentation.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.430-437
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• 2016

Aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$) thin films were grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using a new Al metalorganic precursor, dimethyl aluminum sec-butoxide ($C_{12}H_{30}Al_2O_2$), and water vapor ($H_2O$) as the reactant at deposition temperatures ranging from 150 to $300^{\circ}C$. The ALD process showed typical self-limited film growth with precursor and reactant pulsing time at $250^{\circ}C$; the growth rate was 0.095 nm/cycle, with no incubation cycle. This is relatively lower and more controllable than the growth rate in the typical $ALD-Al_2O_3$ process, which uses trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and shows a growth rate of 0.11 nm/cycle. The as-deposited $ALD-Al_2O_3$ film was amorphous; X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy confirmed that its amorphous state was maintained even after annealing at $1000^{\circ}C$. The refractive index of the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ films ranged from 1.45 to 1.67; these values were dependent on the deposition temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ films deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ were stoichiometric, with no carbon impurity. The step coverage of the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ film was perfect, at approximately 100%, at the dual trench structure, with an aspect ratio of approximately 6.3 (top opening size of 40 nm). With capacitance-voltage measurements of the $Al/ALD-Al_2O_3/p-Si$ structure, the dielectric constant of the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ films deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ was determined to be ~8.1, with a leakage current density on the order of $10^{-8}A/cm^2$ at 1 V.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.148-152
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• 2008

A new cost-effective atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique, known as Proximity-Scan ALD (PS-ALD) was developed and its benefits were demonstrated by depositing $Al_2O_3$ and $HfO_2$ thin films using TMA and TEMAHf, respectively, as precursors. The system is consisted of two separate injectors for precursors and reactants that are placed near a heated substrate at a proximity of less than 1 cm. The bell-shaped injector chamber separated but close to the substrate forms a local chamber, maintaining higher pressure compared to the rest of chamber. Therefore, a system configuration with a rotating substrate gives the typical sequential deposition process of ALD under a continuous source flow without the need for gas switching. As the pressure required for the deposition is achieved in a small local volume, the need for an expensive metal organic (MO) source is reduced by a factor of approximately 100 concerning the volume ratio of local to total chambers. Under an optimized deposition condition, the deposition rates of $Al_2O_3$ and $HfO_2$ were $1.3\;{\AA}/cycle$ and $0.75\;{\AA}/cycle$, respectively, with dielectric constants of 9.4 and 23. A relatively short cycle time ($5{\sim}10\;sec$) due to the lack of the time-consuming "purging and pumping" process and the capability of multi-wafer processing of the proposed technology offer a very high through-put in addition to a lower cost.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.320.1-320.1
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• 2013

We have investigated the effect of surface passivation for crystalline silicon solar cell using ozone-based atomic layer deposited (ALD) $Al_2O_3$. We examined passivation properties such as uniformity, carrier lifetime, thickness, negative fixed charge density at AlOx/Si interface, and reflectance. The influences of process temperature and heat treatment were investigated using microwave photoconductance decay (PCD). Ozone-based ALD $Al_2O_3$ film shows the best carrier lifetime at lower deposition temperature than $H_2O$-based ALD.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.91-95
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• 2010

A UV-enhanced atomic layer deposition (UV-ALD) process was developed to deposit $TiO_2$ thin films on Si substrates using titanium isopropoxide(TIP) and $H_2O$ as precursors with UV light. In the UV-ALD process, the surface reactions were found to be self-limiting and complementary enough to yield a uniform, conformal, pure $TiO_2$ thin film on Si substrates at room temperature. The UV light was very effective to obtain the high-quality $TiO_2$ thin films with good adhesive strength on Si substrates. The UV-ALD process was applied to produce uniform and conformal $TiO_2$ coats into deep trenches with high aspect ratio.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.328-341
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• 2022

Area selective atomic layer deposition (AS-ALD) is a bottom-up nanopattern fabrication method that can grow the ALD films only on the desired substrate areas without using photolithography and etching processes. Particularly, AS-ALD has attracted great attention in the semiconductor manufacturing process due to its advantage in reducing edge placement error by fabricating self-aligned patterns. In this paper, the basic principles and characteristics of AS-ALD are described. In addition, various approaches for achieving AS-ALD with excellent selectivity were comprehensively reviewed. Finally, the technology development to overcome the selectivity limit of AS-ALD was introduced along with future prospects.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2032-2037
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• 2007

Numerical analysis was conducted to investigate the atomic layer deposition(ALD) of silicon nitride using silane and ammonia as precursors. The present study simulated the surface reactions for as-deposited $Si_3N_4$ as well as the kinetics for the reactions of $SiH_4$ and $NH_3$on the semiconductor wafer. The present numerical results showed that the ALD process is dependent on the activation constant. It was also shown that the low activation constant leads to the self-limiting reaction required for the ALD process. The inlet and wafer temperatures were 473 K and 823 K, respectively. The system pressure is 2 Torr.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.06b
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• pp.185-188
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• 2001

In this study, $Al_2$O$_3$films have been deposited with Atomic Layer Deposition(ALD) for gate insulator for MPTMA and $H_2O$ at low temperature below 40$0^{\circ}C$ . Conventional methods of $Al_2$O$_3$thin film deposition have suffered from the poor step coverage due to reduction of device dimension and increasing contact/via hole aspect ratio. ALD is a self-limiting growth process with controlled surface reaction where the growth rate is only dependent on the number of growth cycle and the lattice parameter of materials. ALD growth process has many advantages including accurate thickness control, large area and large batch capability, good uniformity, and pinholes freeness.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.33-35
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• 2016

In this study, a new plasma source was used in the ALD process. Line type plasma sources were analyzed by electric and magnetic field simulation. And the results were compared with plasma density and electron temperature measurement results. As a result, the results of the computer simulation and the diagnosis results of plasma density and electron temperature showed similar tendency. At this time, the plasma uniformity is 95.6 %. $Al_2O_3$ thin film was coated on 6 inch Si-wafer, using this plasma source. The uniformity of the thin film was more than 98% and the thin film growth rate was 0.13 nm/cycle.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.175-183
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• 2024

Research into optical signal processing using photonic integrated circuits (PICs) has been actively pursued in various fields, including optical communication, optical sensors, and quantum optics. Among the materials used in PIC fabrication, polymers have attracted significant interest due to their unique characteristics. To fabricate polymer-based PICs, establishing an accurate manufacturing process for the cross-sectional structure of an optical waveguide is crucial. For stable device performance and high yield in mass production, a process with high reproducibility and a wide tolerance for variation is necessary. This study proposes an efficient method for fabricating polymer optical-waveguide devices by introducing the atomic layer deposition (ALD) process. Compared to conventional photoresist or metal-film deposition methods, the ALD process enables more precise fabrication of the optical waveguide's core structure. Polyimide optical waveguides with a core size of 1.8 × 1.6 ㎛² are fabricated using the ALD process, and their propagation losses are measured. Additionally, a multimode interference (MMI) optical-waveguide power-splitter device is fabricated and characterized. Throughout the fabrication, no cracking issues are observed in the etching-mask layer, the vertical profiles of the waveguide patterns are excellent, and the propagation loss is below 1.5 dB/cm. These results confirm that the ALD process is a suitable method for the mass production of high-quality polymer photonic devices.