• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.567-577
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• 2019

Aluminum nitride (AlN) has versatile and intriguing properties, such as wide direct bandgap, high thermal conductivity, good thermal and chemical stability, and various functionalities. Due to these properties, AlN thin films have been applied in various fields. However, AlN thin films are usually deposited by high temperature processes like chemical vapor deposition. To further enlarge the application of AlN films, atomic layer deposition (ALD) has been studied as a method of AlN thin film deposition at low temperature. In this mini review paper, we summarize the results of recent studies on AlN film grown by thermal and plasma enhanced ALD in terms of processing temperature, precursor type, reactant gas, and plasma source. Thermal ALD can grow AlN thin films at a wafer temperature of $150{\sim}550^{\circ}C$ with alkyl/amine or chloride precursors. Due to the low reactivity with $NH_3$ reactant gas, relatively high growth temperature and narrow window are reported. On the other hand, PEALD has an advantage of low temperature process, while crystallinity and defect level in the film are dependent on the plasma source. Lastly, we also introduce examples of application of ALD-grown AlN films in electronics.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 2023

Organic light-emitting diode(OLED) is very thin organic films which are hundreds of nanometers. Unlike bottom-emission OLED(BEOLED), top-emission OLED(TEOLED) emits light out the front, opaque moisture absorbents or metal foils can't be used to prevent moisture and oxygen. And it is difficult to have flexible characteristics with glass encapsulation, so thin film encapsulation which can compensate for those two disadvantages is mainly used. In this study, Al₂O₃ thin films by atomic layer deposition(ALD) were examined by changing the argon gas purge flow rate and we applied this Al₂O₃ thin films to the encapsulation of TEOLED. Ag / ITO / N,N'-Di-[(1-naphthyl)-N,N'-diphenyl]-1,1'-biphenyl-4,4'-diamine / tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum/ LiF / Mg:Ag (1:9) were used to fabricate OLED device. The characteristics such as brightness, current density, and power efficiency are compared. And it was confirmed that with a thickness of 40 nm Al₂O₃ thin film encapsulation process did not affect OLED properties. And it was enough to maintain a proper OLED operation for about 9 hours.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.538-543
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• 2008

Recently a nano-scale diamond is possible to manufacture forms of powder(below 100 nm) by new processing of explosion or deposition method. Using a sintering of nano-scale diamond is possible to manufacture of grinding tools. We have need of a processing development of coated uniformly inorganic to prevent an abnormal grain growth of nano-crystal and bonding obstacle caused by sintering process. This paper, in order to improve the sintering property of nano-scale diamond, we coated ZnO thin films(thickness: $20{\sim}30\;nm$) in a vacuum by ALD(atomic layer deposition) Economically, in order to deposit ZnO all over the surface of nano-scale diamond powder, we used a new modified fluidized bed processing replaced mechanical vibration effect or fluidized bed reactor which utilized diamond floating owing to pressure of pulse(or purge) processing after inserted diamond powders in quartz tube(L: 20 mm) then closed quartz tube by porosity glass filter. We deposited ZnO thin films by ALD in closed both sides of quartz tube by porosity glass filter by ALD(precursor: DEZn($C_4H_{10}Zn$), reaction gas: $H_2O$) at $10^{\circ}C$(in canister). Processing procedure and injection time of reaction materials set up DEZn pulse-0.1 sec, DEZn purge-20 sec, $H_2O$ pulse-0.1 sec, $H_2O$ purge-40 sec and we put in operation repetitive 100 cycles(1 cycle is 4 steps) We confirmed microstructure of diamond powder and diamond powder doped ZnO thin film by TEM(transmission electron microscope) Through TEM analysis, we confirmed that diamond powder diameter was some $70{\sim}120\;nm$ and shape was tetragonal, hexagonal, etc before ALD. We confirmed that diameter of diamond powders doped ZnO thin film was some $70{\sim}120\;nm$ and uniform ZnO(thickness: $20{\sim}30\;nm$) thin film was successfully deposited on diamond powder surface according to brightness difference between diamond powder and ZnO.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.581-588
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• 2013

This paper presents a study of the process temperature dependence of $Al_2O_3$ film grown by thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD) as a passivation layer in the crystalline Si (c-Si) solar cells. The deposition rate of $Al_2O_3$ film maintained almost the same until $250^{\circ}C$, but decreased from $300^{\circ}C$. $Al_2O_3$ film deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ was found to have the highest negative fixed oxide charge density ($Q_f$) due to its O-rich condition and low hydroxyl group (-OH) density. After post-metallization annealing (PMA), $Al_2O_3$ film deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ had the lowest slow and fast interface trap density. Actually, $Al_2O_3$ film deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ showed the best passivation effects, that is, the highest excess carrier lifetime (${\tau}_{PCD}$) and lowest surface recombination velocity ($S_{eff}$) than other conditions. Therefore, $Al_2O_3$ film deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ exhibited excellent chemical and field-effect passivation properties for p-type c-Si solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.118-118
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• 2011

The Nano-Floating Gate Memory(NFGM) devices with ZnO:Cu thin film embedded in Al2O3 and AlOx-SAOL were fabricated and the electrical characteristics were evaluated. To further improve the scaling and to increase the program/erase speed, the high-k dielectric with a large barrier height such as Al2O3 can also act alternatively as a blocking layer for high-speed flash memory device application. The Al2O3 layer and AlOx-SAOL were deposited by MLD system and ZnO:Cu films were deposited by ALD system. The tunneling layer which is consisted of AlOx-SAOL were sequentially deposited at $100^{\circ}C$. The floating gate is consisted of ZnO films, which are doped with copper. The floating gate of ZnO:Cu films was used for charge trap. The same as tunneling layer, floating gate were sequentially deposited at $100^{\circ}C$. By using ALD process, we could control the proportion of Cu doping in charge trap layer and observe the memory characteristic of Cu doping ratio. Also, we could control and observe the memory property which is followed by tunneling layer thickness. The thickness of ZnO:Cu films was measured by Transmission Electron Microscopy. XPS analysis was performed to determine the composition of the ZnO:Cu film deposited by ALD process. A significant threshold voltage shift of fabricated floating gate memory devices was obtained due to the charging effects of ZnO:Cu films and the memory windows was about 13V. The feasibility of ZnO:Cu films deposited between Al2O3 and AlOx-SAOL for NFGM device application was also showed. We applied our ZnO:Cu memory to thin film transistor and evaluate the electrical property. The structure of our memory thin film transistor is consisted of all organic-inorganic hybrid structure. Then, we expect that our film could be applied to high-performance flexible device.----못찾겠음......

• Korean Journal of Crystallography
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.89-101
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• 2005

Among many material processing related issues for successful scaling down of devices for the next 10 years or so, the advanced gate stack and interconnect technology are two most critical research areas, which need technical innovation. The introduction of new metallic films and appropriate processing technologies are required more than ever. Especially, as the device downscaling continues well into sub 50 nm regime, the paradigm for metal nano film deposition technique research has been shifted to high conformality, low growth temperature, high quality with uniformity at large area wafers. Regarding these, ALD has sparked a lot of interests for a number of reasons. The process is intrinsically atomic in nature, resulting in the controlled deposition of films in sub-monolayer units with excellent conformality. In this paper, the overview on the current issues and the future trends in device processing technologies related to metal nano films as well as the R&D trends in these applications will be discussed. The focus will be on the applications for metal gate, capacitor electrode for DRAM, and diffusion barriers/seed layers for Cu interconnect technology.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.28.1-28.1
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• 2011

We deposited the carbon films on Ni substrates by thermal atomic layer deposition (th-ALD), for the first time, using carbon tetrabromide ($CBr_4$) precursors and H2 reactants at two different temperatures (573 K and 673 K). Morphology of carbon films was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The carbon films having amorphous carbon structures were analyzed by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy. As the working temperature was increased from 573 K to 673 K, the intensity of C1s spectra was increased while that of O1s core spectra was reduced. That is, the purity of carbon films containing bromine (Br) atoms was increased. Also, the thin amorphous carbon films (ALD 3 cycle) were transformed to multilayer graphene segregated on Ni layer, through the post-annealing and cooling process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.87-87
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• 2010

We report a new patterning technique of inorganic materials by using thin-film transfer printing (TFTP) with atomic layer deposition. This method consists of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) of inorganic thin film and a nanotransfer printing (nTP) that is based on a water-mediated transfer process. In the TFTP method, the Al2O3 ALD growth occurs on FTS-coated PDMS stamp without specific chemical species, such as hydroxyl group. The CF3-terminated alkylsiloxane monolayer, which is coated on PDMS stamp, provides a weak adhesion between the deposited Al2O3 and stamp, and promotes the easy and complete release of Al2O3 film from the stamp. And also, the water layer serves as an adhesion layer to provide good conformal contact and form strong covalent bonding between the Al2O3 layer and Si substrate. Thus, the TFTP technique is potentially useful for making nanochannels of various inorganic materials.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.127-130
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• 2011

We investigated the effects of $O_2$ annealing (i.e., temperature and time) on the characteristics of hafnium silicate ($HfSi_xO_y$) films deposited on a Si substrate by atomic layer deposition process (ALD). We found that the post deposition annealing under oxidizing ambient causes the oxidation of residual Hf metal components, resulting in the improvement of electrical characteristics (e.g., hysteresis window and leakage current are decreased). In addition, we observed the annealing temperature is more important than the annealing time for post deposition annealing. Based on these observations, we suggest that post deposition annealing under oxidizing ambient is necessary to improve the electrical characteristics of $HfSi_xO_y$ films deposited by ALD. However, the annealing temperature has to be carefully controlled to minimize the regrowth of interfacial oxide, which degrades the value of equivalent oxide thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.362-362
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• 2014

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be regarded as a special variation of the chemical vapor deposition method for reducing film thickness. ALD is based on sequential self-limiting reactions from the gas phase to produce thin films and over-layers in the nanometer scale with perfect conformality and process controllability. These characteristics make ALD an important film deposition technique for nanoelectronics. Tantalum pentoxide ($Ta_2O_5$) has a number of applications in optics and electronics due to its superior properties, such as thermal and chemical stability, high refractive index (>2.0), low absorption in near-UV to IR regions, and high-k. In particular, the dielectric constant of amorphous $Ta_2O_5$ is typically close to 25. Accordingly, $Ta_2O_5$ has been extensively studied in various electronics such as metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (FET), organic FET, dynamic random access memories (RAM), resistance RAM, etc. In this experiment, the variations of chemical and interfacial state during the growth of $Ta_2O_5$ films on the Si substrate by ALD was investigated using in-situ synchrotron radiation photoemission spectroscopy. A newly synthesized liquid precursor $Ta(N^tBu)(dmamp)_2$ Me was used as the metal precursor, with Ar as a purging gas and $H_2O$ as the oxidant source. The core-level spectra of Si 2p, Ta 4f, and O 1s revealed that Ta suboxide and Si dioxide were formed at the initial stages of $Ta_2O_5$ growth. However, the Ta suboxide states almost disappeared as the ALD cycles progressed. Consequently, the $Ta^{5+}$ state, which corresponds with the stoichiometric $Ta_2O_5$, only appeared after 4.0 cycles. Additionally, tantalum silicide was not detected at the interfacial states between $Ta_2O_5$ and Si. The measured valence band offset value between $Ta_2O_5$ and the Si substrate was 3.08 eV after 2.5 cycles.