• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.424-432
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• 2019

Planar BiVO₄ and 3 wt% Mo-doped BiVO₄ (abbreviated as Mo:BiVO₄) film were prepared by the facile spin-coating method on fluorine doped SnO₂(FTO) substrate in the same precursor solution including the Mo precursor in Mo:BiVO₄ film. After annealing at a high temperature of 450℃ for 30 min to improve crystallinity, the films exhibited the monoclinic crystalline phase and nanoporous architecture. Both films showed no remarkably discrepancy in crystalline or morphological properties. To investigate the effect of surface passivation exploring the Al₂O₃ layer, the ultra-thin Al₂O₃ layer with a thickness of approximately 2 nm was deposited on BiVO₄ film using the atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. No distinct morphological modification was observed for all prepared BiVO₄ and Mo:BiVO₄ films. Only slightly reduced nanopores were observed. Although both samples showed some reduction of light absorption in the visible wavelength after coating of Al₂O₃ layer, the Al₂O₃ coated BiVO₄ (Al₂O₃/BiVO₄) film exhibited enhanced photoelectrochemical performance in 0.5 M Na₂SO₄ solution (pH 6.5), having higher photocurrent density (0.91 mA/㎠ at 1.23 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), briefly abbreviated as V_RHE) than BiVO₄ film (0.12 mA/㎠ at 1.23 V_RHE). Moreover, Al₂O₃ coating on the Mo:BiVO₄ film exhibited more enhanced photocurrent density (1.5 mA/㎠ at 1.23 V_RHE) than the Mo:BiVO₄ film (0.86 mA/㎠ at 1.23 V_RHE). To examine the reasons, capacitance measurement and Mott-Schottky analysis were conducted, revealing that the significant degradation of capacitance value was observed in both BiVO₄ film and Al₂O₃/Mo:BiVO₄ film, probably due to degraded capacitance by surface passivation. Furthermore, the flat-band potential (V_FB) was negatively shifted to about 200 mV while the electronic conductivities were enhanced by Al₂O₃ coating in both samples, contributing to the advancement of PEC performance by ultra-thin Al₂O₃ layer.

• 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.28 no.4
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• pp.241-246
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• 2018

$TaN_x$ film is grown by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) using t-butylimido tris(dimethylamido) tantalum as a metalorganic source with various reactive gas species, such as $N_2+H_2$ mixed gas, $NH_3$, and $H_2$. Although the pulse sequence and duration are the same, aspects of the film growth rate, microstructure, crystallinity, and electrical resistivity are quite different according to the reactive gas. Crystallized and relatively conductive film with a higher growth rate is acquired using $NH_3$ as a reactive gas while amorphous and resistive film with a lower growth rate is achieved using $N_2+H_2$ mixed gas. To examine the relationship between the chemical properties and resistivity of the film, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is conducted on the ALD-grown $TaN_x$ film with $N_2+H_2$ mixed gas, $NH_3$, and $H_2$. For a comparison, reactive sputter-grown $TaN_x$ film with $N_2$ is also studied. The results reveal that ALD-grown $TaN_x$ films with $NH_3$ and $H_2$ include a metallic Ta-N bond, which results in the film's higher conductivity. Meanwhile, ALD-grown $TaN_x$ film with a $N_2+H_2$ mixed gas or sputtergrown $TaN_x$ film with $N_2$ gas mainly contains a semiconducting $Ta_3N_5$ bond. Such a different portion of Ta-N and $Ta_3N_5$ bond determins the resistivity of the film. Reaction mechanisms are considered by means of the chemistry of the Ta precursor and reactive gas species.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.12 no.9
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• pp.1682-1688
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• 2008

The Counterpropagation algorithm(CP) is a combination of Kohonen competition network as a hidden layer and the outstar structure of Grossberg as an output layer. CP has been used in many real applications for pattern matching, classification, data compression and statistical analysis since its learning speed is faster than other network models. However, due to the Kohonen layer's winner-takes-all strategy, it often causes instable learning and/or incorrect pattern classification when patterns are relatively diverse. Also, it is often criticized by the sensitivity of performance on the learning rate. In this paper, we propose an enhanced CP that has multiple Kohonen layers and dynamic controlling facility of learning rate using the frequency of winner neurons and the difference between input vector and the representative of winner neurons for stable learning and momentum learning for controlling weights of output links. A real world application experiment - pattern recognition from passport information - is designed for the performance evaluation of this enhanced CP and it shows that our proposed algorithm improves the conventional CP in learning and recognition performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.316-316
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• 2008

Using an evaporation method, $SiO_2$ was deposited as a buffer layer between a flexible PET substrate and a ITO film deposited by DC magnetron sputtering and electro-optical properties were investigated with thickness variance of $SiO_2$ layers. After coating a $SiO_2$ layer and a ITO film, the ITO/$SiO_2$/PET was heated up to $200^{\circ}C$ and the resistivity and the transmittance were measured by hall effect measurement system and UV/VIS/NIR spectroscopy. As a result of depositing a $SiO_2$ buffer layer, the resistivity increased and the transmittance and adhesion property were enhanced than ITO films with no buffer layers and the resistivity was lowered as $SiO_2$ thickness increased from 50 $\AA$ to 100 $\AA$. It was found that the transmittance was independent of annealing temperature variance in $150^{\circ}C{\sim}200^{\circ}C$ and the resistivity decreased as the temperature increased and especially decreasing rate of the resistivity was higher as the buffer layer thickness was thinner. So under optimized depositing of $SiO_2$ buffer layers and post-annealing of ITO/$SiO_2$/PET, ITO films with enhanced adhesion, electro-optical properties can obtained.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.30-33
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• 2012

We have grown $MgB_2$ superconducting thin films on the SiC buffer layers by means of hybrid physical-chemical vapor deposition (HPCVD) technique. Prior to that, SiC was first deposited on $Al_2O_3$ substrates at various temperatures from room temperature to $600^{\circ}C$ by using the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method in a vacuum atmosphere of ${\sim}10^{-6}$ Torr pressure. All samples showed a high transition temperature of ~40 K. The grain boundaries of $MgB_2$ samples with SiC layer are greater in amount, compare to that of the pure $MgB_2$ samples. $MgB_2$ with SiC buffer layer samples show interesting change in the critical current density ($J_c$) values. Generally, at both 5 K and 20 K measurements, at lower magnetic field, all $MgB_2$ films deposited on SiC buffer layers have low $J_c$ values, but when they reach higher magnetic fields of nearly 3.5 Tesla, $J_c$ values are enhanced. $MgB_2$ film with SiC grown at $600^{\circ}C$ has the highest $J_c$ enhancement at higher magnetic fields, while all SiC buffer layer samples exhibit higher $J_c$ values than that of the pure $MgB_2$ films. A change in the grain boundary morphologies of $MgB_2$ films due to SiC buffer layer seems to be responsible for $J_c$ enhancements at high magnetic fields.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.290-293
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• 2015

The properties of the IZTO thin films on the glass were studied with a variation of the $SiO_2$ buffer layer thickness. $SiO_2$ buffer layers were deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) on the glass, and the In-Zn-Tin-Oxide (IZTO) thin films were deposited on the buffer layer by RF magnetron sputtering. All the IZTO thin films with the $SiO_2$ buffer layer are shown to be amorphous. Optimum $SiO_2$ buffer layer thickness was obtained through analyzing the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of the IZTO thin films. As a result, the IZTO surface roughness is 0.273 nm with a sheet resistance of $25.32{\Omega}/sq$ and the average transmittance is 82.51% in the visible region, at a $SiO_2$ buffer layer thickness of 40 nm. The result indicates that the uniformity of surface and the properties of the IZTO thin film on the glass were improved by employing the $SiO_2$ buffer layer and the IZTO thin film can be applied well to the transparent conductive oxide for display devices.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.291-295
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• 2015

IGZO single layer and $IGZO/TiO_2$ bi-layered films were deposited on glass substrate at room temperature with radio frequency magnetron sputtering to investigate the effect of $TiO_2$ buffer layer on the electrical and optical properties of the films. For all deposition, the thickness of IGZO and $TiO_2$ Buffer layer was kept at 100 and 5 nm, respectively. In a comparison of figure of merit, IGZO films with a 5-nm-thick $TiO_2$ buffer layer show the higher figure of merit ($8.40{\times}10^{-5}{\Omega}^{-1}$) than that of the IGZO single layer films ($6.23{\times}10^{-5}{\Omega}^{-1}$) due to the enhanced optical transmittance and the decreased sheet resistance of the films. The observed results mean that a 5 nm thick $TiO_2$ buffer layer in the $IGZO/TiO_2$ films results in better electrical and optical performance than conventional IGZO single layer films.

• Proceedings of the Korea Association of Crystal Growth Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.91-95
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• 1998

Exchange anisotropy between IrMn antiferromagnetic layer and NiFe ferromagnetic layer has been studied in IrxMn(100-x)/NiFe/Buffr/Si(100) films deposited by D. C. magnetron sputtering method. Among Zr, Ta, and Cu used as buffer layer, Zr and Ta enhanced the fcc(111) texture of NiFe and IeMn layer, but Cu did not affect microstructure of those layer. Strong fcc(111) texture of IrMn layer was confirmed to be the origin of exchange anisotropy of IrMn. Ir composition control in IrMn layer showed that {{{{ gamma -phase}}}} IrMn is stabilized between 10 and 30 at % Ir, an 21 at. % Ir in IrMn layer was optimum composition that showed maximum exchange anisotropy field. above 200 ${\AA}$ thickness of IrMn, antiferromagnetic property is stabilzed to show saturated exchange anisotropy field. Based pressure was confirmed to be critical requisite in IrMn-based spin-valve GMR system.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.30-33
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• 2006

Transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) anode surface was modified using $O_3$ Plasma and organic ultrathin buffer layers were deposited on the ITO surface using 13.56 MHz RF plasma polymerization technique. The EL efficiency, operating voltage and lifetime of the organic light-emitting device (OLED) were investigated in order to study the effect of the plasma surface treatment and role of plasma polymerized organic ultrathin buffer layer. Poly methylmethacrylate (PMMA) layers were plasma polymerized on the ITO anode as buffer layer between anode and hole transport layer (HTL). The plasma polymerization of the organic ultrathin layer were carried out at a homemade capacitive-coupled RF plasma equipment. N,N'-diphenyl-N,N'(3- methylphenyl)-1,1'-diphenyl-4,4'-diamine (TPD) as HTL, Tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato) Aluminum $(Alq_3)$ as both emitting layer (EML)/electron transport layer (ETL), and aluminum layer as cathode were deposited using thermal evaporation technique. Effects of the plasma surface treatment of ITO and plasma polymerized buffer layers on the OLED performance were discussed.