• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.122.1-122.1
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• 2015

The dependence of electronic properties and local structure of tantalum oxide thin film on oxygen deficiency have been investigated by means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Reflection Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (REELS), and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). The XPS results showed that the oxygen flow rate change results in the appearance of features in the Ta 4f at the binding energies of 23.2 eV, 24.4 eV, 25.8, and 27.3 eV whose peaks are attributed to Ta1+, Ta2+, Ta3+, Ta4+, and Ta5+, respectively. The presence of nonstoichiometric state from tantalum oxide (TaOx) thin films could be generated by the oxygen vacancies. The REELS spectra suggested the decrease of band gap for tantalum oxide thin films with increasing oxygen deficiency. In addition, XAS spectra manifested both the increase of coordination number of the first Ta-O shell and a considerable reduction of the Ta-O bond distance with the decrease of oxygen deficiency.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.463-469
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• 1996

The double insulating layer consisting of anodic oxide and ZnS was formed for HgCdTe metal insulator semiconductor(MIS) structure. ZnS was evaporated on the anodic oxide grown in H$_{2}$O$_{2}$ electrolyte. Recently, this insulating mechanism for HgCdTe MIS has been deeply studied for improving HgCdTe surface passivation. It was found through TEM observation that an interface layer is formed between ZnS and anodic oxide layers for the first time in the study of this area. EDS analysis of chemical compositions using by electron beam of 20.angs. in diameter and XPS depth composition profile indicated strongly that the new interface is composed of ZnO. Also TEM high resolution image showed that the structure of oxide layer has been changed from the amorphous state to the microsrystalline structure of 100.angs. in diameter after the evaporation of ZnS. The double insulating layer with the resistivity of 10$^{10}$ .ohm.cm was estimated to be proper insulating layer of HgCdTe MIS device. The optical reflectance of about 7% in the region of 5.mu.m showed anti-reflection effect of the insulating layer. The measured C-V curve showed the large shoft of flat band voltage due to the high density of fixed oxide charges about 1.2*10$^{12}$ /cm$^{2}$. The oxygen vacancies and possible cationic state of Zn in the anodic oxide layer are estimated to cause this high density of fixed oxide charges.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.235-237
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• 2016

Oxide/metal/oxide (OMO) thin films were fabricated using amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) and an Ag metal layer on a glass substrate at room temperature. The optical and electrical properties of the a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO samples changed systemically depending on the thickness of the Ag layer. The transmittance in the visible range tends to decrease as the Ag thickness increases while the resistivity, carrier concentration, and Hall mobility tend to improve. The a-IGZO/Ag (13 nm)/a-IGZO thin film with the optimum Ag thickness showed an average transmittance (T_av) of 71.7%, resistivity of 6.63 × 10⁻⁵ Ω·cm and Hall mobility of 15.22 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.3-4
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• 2000

Many researchers are interested in the synthesis and characterization of carbon nitride and diamond-like carbon (DLq because they show excellent mechanical properties such as low friction and high wear resistance and excellent electrical properties such as controllable electical resistivity and good field electron emission. We have deposited amorphous carbon nitride (a-C:N) thin films and DLC thin films by shielded arc ion plating (SAIP) and evaluated the structural and tribological properties. The application of appropriate negative bias on substrates is effective to increase the film hardness and wear resistance. This paper reports on the deposition and tribological OLC films in relation to the substrate bias voltage (Vs). films are compared with those of the OLC films. A high purity sintered graphite target was mounted on a cathode as a carbon source. Nitrogen or argon was introduced into a deposition chamber through each mass flow controller. After the initiation of an arc plasma at 60 A and 1 Pa, the target surface was heated and evaporated by the plasma. Carbon atoms and clusters evaporated from the target were ionized partially and reacted with activated nitrogen species, and a carbon nitride film was deposited onto a Si (100) substrate when we used nitrogen as a reactant gas. The surface of the growing film also reacted with activated nitrogen species. Carbon macropartic1es (0.1 -100 maicro-m) evaporated from the target at the same time were not ionized and did not react fully with nitrogen species. These macroparticles interfered with the formation of the carbon nitride film. Therefore we set a shielding plate made of stainless steel between the target and the substrate to trap the macropartic1es. This shielding method is very effective to prepare smooth a-CN films. We, therefore, call this method "shielded arc ion plating (SAIP)". For the deposition of DLC films we used argon instead of nitrogen. Films of about 150 nm in thickness were deposited onto Si substrates. Their structures, chemical compositions and chemical bonding states were analyzed by using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy. Hardness of the films was measured with a nanointender interfaced with an atomic force microscope (AFM). A Berkovich-type diamond tip whose radius was less than 100 nm was used for the measurement. A force-displacement curve of each film was measured at a peak load force of 250 maicro-N. Load, hold and unload times for each indentation were 2.5, 0 and 2.5 s, respectively. Hardness of each film was determined from five force-displacement curves. Wear resistance of the films was analyzed as follows. First, each film surface was scanned with the diamond tip at a constant load force of 20 maicro-N. The tip scanning was repeated 30 times in a 1 urn-square region with 512 lines at a scanning rate of 2 um/ s. After this tip-scanning, the film surface was observed in the AFM mode at a constant force of 5 maicro-N with the same Berkovich-type tip. The hardness of a-CN films was less dependent on Vs. The hardness of the film deposited at Vs=O V in a nitrogen plasma was about 10 GPa and almost similar to that of Si. It slightly increased to 12 - 15 GPa when a bias voltage of -100 - -500 V was applied to the substrate with showing its maximum at Vs=-300 V. The film deposited at Vs=O V was least wear resistant which was consistent with its lowest hardness. The biased films became more wear resistant. Particularly the film deposited at Vs=-300 V showed remarkable wear resistance. Its wear depth was too shallow to be measured with AFM. On the other hand, the DLC film, deposited at Vs=-l00 V in an argon plasma, whose hardness was 35 GPa was obviously worn under the same wear test conditions. The a-C:N films show higher wear resistance than DLC films and are useful for wear resistant coatings on various mechanical and electronic parts.nic parts.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2017

Insulating $TaN_x$ films were grown by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition using butylimido tris dimethylamido tantalum and $N_2+H_2$ mixed gas as metalorganic source and reactance gas, respectively. Crossbar devices having a $Pt/TaN_x/Pt$ stack were fabricated and their electrical properties were examined. The crossbar devices exhibited temperature-dependent nonlinear I (current) - V (voltage) characteristics in the temperature range of 90-300 K. Various electrical conduction mechanisms were adopted to understand the governing electrical conduction mechanism in the device. Among them, the PooleFrenkel emission model, which uses a bulk-limited conduction mechanism, may successfully fit with the I - V characteristics of the devices with 5- and 18-nm-thick $TaN_x$ films. Values of ~0.4 eV of trap energy and ~20 of dielectric constant were extracted from the fitting. These results can be well explained by the amorphous micro-structure and point defects, such as oxygen substitution ($O_N$) and interstitial nitrogen ($N_i$) in the $TaN_x$ films, which were revealed by transmission electron microscopy and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The nonlinear conduction characteristics of $TaN_x$ film can make this film useful as a selector device for a crossbar array of a resistive switching random access memory or a synaptic device.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.39-42
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• 1999

Perfluoropolymers represent the ultimate resistance to hostile chemical environments and high service temperature, attributed to the presence of fluorine in the polymer backbone, i.e. to the high bond energy of C-F and C-C bonds of fluorocarbons. Copolymers of Tetrafluoroethylene (TEE) and 2, 2, 4Trifluoro-5Trifluorometoxy- 1, 3Dioxole (TTD), commercially known as HYFLON AD, are amorphous perfluoropolymers with glass transition temperature (Tg)higher than room temperature, showing a thermal decomposition temperature exceeding 40$0^{\circ}C$. These polymer systems are highly soluble in fluorinated solvents, with low solution viscosities. This property allows the preparation of self-supported and composite membranes with desired membrane thickness. Symmetric and asymmetric perfluoropolymer membranes, made with HYFLON AD, have been prepared and evaluated. Porous and not porous symmetric membranes have been obtained by solvent evaporation with various processing conditions. Asymmetric membranes have been prepared by th wet phase inversion method. Measure of contact angle to distilled water have been carried out. Figure 1 compares experimental results with those of other commercial membranes. Contact angles of about 120$^{\circ}$for our amorphous perfluoropolymer membranes demonstrate that they posses a high hydrophobic character. Measure of contact angles to hexandecane have been also carried out to evaluate the organophobic character. Rsults are reported in Figure 2. The observed strong organophobicity leads to excellent fouling resistance and inertness. Porous membranes with pore size between 30 and 80 nanometers have shown no permeation to water at pressures as high as 10 bars. However high permeation to gases, such as O2, N2 and CO2, and no selectivities were observed. Considering the porous structure of the membrane, this behavior was expected. In consideration of the above properties, possible useful uses in th field of gas- liquid separations are envisaged for these membranes. A particularly promising application is in the field of membrane contactors, equipments in which membranes are used to improve mass transfer coefficients in respect to traditional extraction and absorption processes. Gas permeation properties have been evaluated for asymmetric membranes and composite symmetric ones. Experimental permselectivity values, obtained at different pressure differences, to various single gases are reported in Tab. 1, 2 and 3. Experimental data have been compared with literature data obtained with membranes made with different amorphous perfluoropolymer systems, such as copolymers of Perfluoro2, 2dimethyl dioxole (PDD) and Tetrafluorethylene, commercialized by the Du Pont Company with the trade name of Teflon AF. An interesting linear relationship between permeability and the glass transition temperature of the polymer constituting the membrane has been observed. Results are descussed in terms of polymer chain structure, which affects the presence of voids at molecular scale and their size distribution. Molecular Dyanmics studies are in progress in order to support the understanding of these results. A modified Theodoru- Suter method provided by the Amorphous Cell module of InsightII/Discover was used to determine the chain packing. A completely amorphous polymer box of about 3.5 nm was considered. Last but not least the use of amorphous perfluoropolymer membranes appears to be ideal when separation processes have to be performed in hostile environments, i.e. high temperatures and aggressive non-aqueous media, such as chemicals and solvents. In these cases Hyflon AD membranes can exploit the outstanding resistance of perfluoropolymers.

• Carbon letters
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• v.24
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• pp.73-81
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• 2017

Interconnected meso/microporous activated carbons were prepared from pumpkin seeds using a simple chemical activation method. The porous carbon materials were prepared at different temperatures (PS-600, PS-700, PS-800, and PS-900) and demonstrated huge surface areas ($645-2029m^2g^{-1}$) with excellent pore volumes ($0.27-1.30cm^3g^{-1}$). The well-condensed graphitic structure of the prepared activated carbon materials was confirmed by Raman and X-ray diffraction analyses. The presence of heteroatoms (O and N) in the carbon materials was confirmed by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. High resolution transmission electron microscopic images and selected area diffraction patters further revealed the porous structure and amorphous nature of the prepared electrode materials. The resultant porous carbons (PS-600, PS-700, PS-800, and PS-900) were utilized as electrode material for supercapacitors. To our delight, the PS-900 demonstrated a maximum specific capacitance (Cs) of $303F\;g^{-1}$ in 1.0 M $H_2SO_4 $ at a scan rate of 5 mV. The electrochemical impedance spectra confirmed the poor electrical resistance of the electrode materials. Moreover, the stability of the PS-900 was found to be excellent (no significant change in the Cs even after 6000 cycles).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3250-3259
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• 2022

A new approach to the use of rice straw as a difficult-to-recycle agricultural waste was proposed. Potassium aluminosilicate was obtained by spark plasma sintering as an effective material for subsequent immobilization of ¹³⁷Cs into a solid-state matrix. The sorption properties of potassium aluminosilicate to ¹³⁷Cs from aqueous solutions were studied. The effect of the synthesis temperature on the phase composition, microstructure, and rate of cesium leaching from samples obtained at 800-1000 ℃ and a pressure of 25 MPa was investigated. It was shown that the positive dynamics of compaction was characteristic of glass ceramics throughout the sintering. Glass ceramics RS-(K,Cs)AlSi₃O₈ obtained by the SPS method at 1000 ℃ for 5 min was characterized by a high density of ~2.62 g/cm³, Vickers hardness ~ 2.1 GPa, compressive strength ~231.3 MPa and the rate of cesium ions leaching of ~1.37 × 10^-7 g cm^-2·day^-1. The proposed approach makes it possible to safe dispose of rice straw and reduce emissions into the atmosphere of microdisperse amorphous silica, which is formed during its combustion and causes respiratory diseases, including cancer. In addition, the obtained is perspective to solve the problem of recycling long-lived ¹³⁷Cs radionuclides formed during the operation of nuclear power plants into solid-state matrices.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.24.1-24.1
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• 2009

Tantalum carbo-nitride($T_aC_xN_y$) films were deposited with chemical vapor deposition(CVD) using tert-butylimido tris-diethylamido tantalum (TBTDET, $^tBu-N=Ta-(NEt_2)_3$, $Et=C_2H_5$, $^tBu=C(CH_3)_3$) between $350^{\circ}C$ and $600^{\circ}C$ with argon as a carrier gas. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR)spectroscopy was used to study the thermal decomposition behavior of TBTDET in the gas phase. When the temperature was increased, C-H and C-N bonding of TBTDET disappeared and the peaks of ethylene appeared above $450^{\circ}C$ in the gas phase. The growth rate and film density of $T_aC_xN_y$ film were in the range of 0.1nm/min to 1.30nm/min and of $8.92g/cm^3$ to $10.6g/cm^3$ depending on the deposition temperature. $T_aC_xN_y$ films deposited below $400^{\circ}C$ were amorphous and became polycrystal line above $500^{\circ}C$. It was confirmed that the $T_aC_xN_y$ film was a mixture of TaC, graphite, $Ta_3N_5$, TaN, and $Ta_2O_5$ phases and the oxide phase was formed from the post deposition oxygen uptake. With the increase of the deposition temperature, the TaN phase was increased over TaC and $Ta_3N_5$ and crystallinity, work function, conductivity and density of the film were increased. Also the oxygen uptake was decreased due to the increase of the film density. With the increase of the TaC phase in $T_aC_xN_y$ film, the work function was decreased to 4.25eV and with the increase of the TaN phase in $T_aC_xN_y$ film,it was increased to 4.48eV.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.289-293
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• 2010

Silicon quantum dots (Si QDs) in a superlattice for high efficiency tandem solar cells were fabricated by magnetron rf sputtering and their characteristics were investigated. SiC/$Si_{1-x}C_x$ superlattices were deposited by co-sputtering of Si and C targets and annealed at $1000^{\circ}C$ for 20 minutes in a nitrogen atmosphere. The Si QDs in Si-rich layers were verified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction. The size of the QDs was observed to be 3-6 nm through high resolution TEM. Some crystal Si and -SiC peaks were clearly observed in the grazing incident X-ray diffractogram. Raman spectroscopy in the annealed sample showed a sharp peak at $516\;cm^{-1}$ which is an indication of Si QDs. Based on the Raman shift the size of the QD was estimated to be 4-6 nm. The volume fraction of Si crystals was calculated to be about 33%. The change of the FT-IR absorption spectrum from a Gaussian shape to a Lorentzian shape also confirmed the phase transition from an amorphous phase before annealing to a crystalline phase after annealing. The optical absorption coefficient also decreased, but the optical band gap increased from 1.5 eV to 2.1 eV after annealing. Therefore, it is expected that the optical energy gap of the QDs can be controlled with growth and annealing conditions.