• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.482-496
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• 1993

Radiation damage and contamination of silicons etched in the $CF_4+H_2$ and $CHF_3$ magnetron discharges have been characterized using Schottky diode characteristics, TEM, AES, and SIMS as a function of applied magnetic field strength. It turned out that, as the magnetic field strength increased, the radiation damage measured by cross sectional TEM and by leakage current of Schottky diodes decreased colse to that of wet dtched samples especially for $CF_4$ plasma etched samples, For $CF_4+H_2$and $CHF_3$ etched samples, hydrogen from the plasmas introduced extended defects to the silicon and this caused increased leakage current to the samples etched at low magnetic field strength conditions by hydrogen passivation. The thickness of polymer with the increasing magnetic field strength and showed the minimum polymer residue thickness near the 100Gauss where the silicon etch rate was maximum. Also, other contaminants such as target material were found to be minimum on the etched silicon surface near the highest etch rate condition.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.203-209
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• 2000

This paper proposes the improvement of the etch rate of GaN using a magnetized inductively coupled $CH_4/H_2/Ar$plasma. The gradient magnetic field with the axial direction is investigated using Gauss-meter and the ion current density is measured using double Langmuir probe. The applied magnetic field changes the ion current density profile in the radial direction, resulting in producing the higher density in the outer region than in the center. GaN dry etching process is carried out based on the measurements of the ion current density. The each rate of 2000 /min is achieved with $CH_4/H_2/Ar$ chemistries at 800 W input power, 250W rf bias power, 10 mTorr pressure and 100 gauss magnetic field.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2011

These days, a growing demand for memory device is filled up with the flash memory and the dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Although DRAM is a reasonable solution for current demand, the universal novel memory with high density, high speed and nonvolatility, needs to be developed. Among various new memories, the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) device is considered as one of good candidate memories because of excellent features including high density, high speed, low operating power and nonvolatility. The etching of MTJ stack which is composed of magnetic materials and insulator such as MgO is one of the vital process for MRAM. Recently, MgO has attracted great interest in the MTJ stack as tunneling barrier layer for its high tunneling magnetoresistance values. For the successful realization of high density MRAM, the etching process of MgO thin films should be investigated. Until now, there were some works devoted to the investigations on etch characteristics of MgO thin films. Initially, ion milling was applied to the etching of MgO thin films. However, ion milling has many disadvantages such as sidewall redeposition and etching damage. High density plasma etching containing the magnetically enhanced reactive ion etching and high density reactive ion etching have been employed for the improvement of etching process. In this work, inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICPRIE) system was adopted for the improvement of etching process using MgO thin films and etching gas mixes of $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4$/$O_2$/Ar have been employed. The etch rates are measured by a surface profilometer and etch profiles are observed using field emission scanning emission microscopy (FESEM). The effects of gas concentration and etch parameters such as coil rf power, dc-bias voltage to substrate, and gas pressure on etch characteristics will be systematically explored.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.390-390
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• 2012

Information technology industries has grown rapidly and demanded alternative memories for the next generation. The most popular random access memory, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), has many advantages as a memory, but it could not meet the demands from the current of developed industries. One of highlighted alternative memories is magnetic random-access memory (MRAM). It has many advantages like low power consumption, huge storage, high operating speed, and non-volatile properties. MRAM consists of magnetic-tunnel-junction (MTJ) stack which is a key part of it and has various magnetic thin films like CoFeB, FePt, IrMn, and so on. Each magnetic thin film is difficult to be etched without any damages and react with chemical species in plasma. For improving the etching process, a high density plasma etching process was employed. Moreover, the previous etching gases were highly corrosive and dangerous. Therefore, the safety etching gases are needed to be developed. In this research, the etch characteristics of CoFeB magnetic thin films were studied by using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching in $CH_4/O_2/Ar$ gas mixes. TiN thin films were used as a hardmask on CoFeB thin films. The concentrations of $O_2$ in $CH_4/O_2/Ar$ gas mix were varied, and then, the rf coil power, gas pressure, and dc-bias voltage. The etch rates and the selectivity were obtained by a surface profiler and the etch profiles were observed by a field emission scanning electron microscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was employed to reveal the etch mechanism.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.460-464
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• 2003

The barium strontium titannate ((Ba,Sr)TiO$_3$:BST) thin films were etched in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) as a function of CF$_4$/Ar gas mixing ratio. Under CF$_4$(20%)/Ar(80%), the maximum etch rate of the BST films was 400 $\AA$/min. Etching products were redeposited on the surface of BST and then the nature of crystallinity were varied. Therefore, we investigated the etched surface of BST by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The plasma damages were evaluated in terms of leakage current density by Agilent 4145C and dielectric constant by HP 4192 impedance analyzer. After the BST thin films exposed in the plasma, the leakage current density and roughness increases. After annealing at 600 $^{\circ}C$ for 10 min in $O_2$ ambient, the leakage current density, roughness and nonvolatile etch byproducts reduced. From this results, the plasma induced damages were recovered by annealing process owing to the relaxation of lattice mismatches by Ar ions and the desorption of metal fluorides in high temperature.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.57-63
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• 2008

In this paper, the dependence of MOSFET performance on the channel stress is characterized in depth. The tensile and compressive stresses are applied to CMOSFET using a nitride film which is used for the contact etch stop layer (CESL). Drain current of NMOS and PMOS is increased by inducing tensile and compressive stress, respectively, due to the increased mobility as well known. In case of NMOS with tensile stress, both decrease of the back scattering ratio ($\tau_{sat}$) and increase of the thermal injection velocity ($V_{inj}$) contribute the increase of mobility. It is also shown that the decrease of the $\tau_{sat}$ is due to the decrease of the mean free path ($\lambda_O$). On the other hand, the mobility improvement of PMOS with compressive stress is analyzed to be only due to the so increased $V_{inj}$ because the back scattering ratio is increased by the compressive stress. Therefore it was confirmed that the device performance has a strong dependency on the channel back scattering of the inversion layer and thermal injection velocity at the source side and NMOS and PMOS have different dependency on them.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2001

This paper investigates the characteristics of a newly developed high density hollow cathode plasma(HCP) system and its application for the etching of silicon wafers. We used $SF_6$ and $O_2$ gases in the HCP dry etch process. This paper demonstrates very high plasma density of $2{\times}10^{12}cm^{-3}$ at a discharge current of 20 rna, Silicon etch rate of 1.3 ${\mu}m$/min was achieved with $SF_6/O_2$ plasma conditions of total gas pressure of 50 mTorr, gas flow rate of 40 seem, and RF power of200W. This paper presents surface etching characteristics on a crystalline silicon wafer and large area cast type multicrystlline silicon wafer. We obtained field emitter tips size of less than 0.1 ${\mu}m$ without any photomask step as well as with a conventional photolithography. Our experimental results can be applied to various display systems such as thin film growth and etching for TFT-LCDs, emitter tip formations for FEDs, and bright plasma discharge for PDP applications. In this research, we studied silicon etching properties by using the hollow cathode plasma system.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.42-44
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• 2007

The a-Si:H TFTs decreasing parasitic capacitance of source-drain is fabricated on glass. The structure of a-Si:H TFTs is inverted staggered. The gate electrode is formed by patterning with length of $8{\mu}m{\sim}16{\mu}m$ and width of $80{\sim}200{\mu}m$ after depositing with gate electrode (Cr) $1500{\AA}$ under coming 7059 glass substrate. We have fabricated a-SiN:H, conductor, etch-stopper and photoresistor on gate electrode in sequence, respectively. The thickness of these, thin films is formed with a-SiN:H ($2000{\mu}m$), a-Si:H($2000{\mu}m$) and $n^+a-Si:H$ ($500{\mu}m$). We have deposited $n^+a-Si:H$, NPR(Negative Photo Resister) layer after forming pattern of Cr gate electrode by etch-stopper pattern. The NPR layer by inverting pattern of upper gate electrode is patterned and the $n^+a-Si:H$ layer is etched by the NPR pattern. The NPR layer is removed. After Cr layer is deposited and patterned, the source-drain electrode is formed. The a-Si:H TFTs decreasing parasitic capacitance of source-drain show drain current of $8{\mu}A$ at 20 gate voltages, $I_{on}/I_{off}$ ratio of ${\sim}10^8$ and $V_{th}$ of 4 volts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.62-62
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• 2015

In this study, we study the effects of CF4 plasma treatment on the characteristics of enhancement mode (E-mode) AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). The CF4 plasma is generated by inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) system. The CF4 gas is decomposed into fluorine ions by ICP-RIE and then fluorine ions will effect the AlGaN/GaN interface to inhibit the electron transport of two dimension electron gas (2DEG) and increase channel resistance. The CF4 plasma method neither like the recessed type which have to utilize Cl2/BCl3 to etch semiconductor layer nor ion implantation needed high power to implant ions into semiconductor. Both of techniques will cause semiconductor damage. In the experiment, the CF4 treatment time are 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 seconds. It was found that the devices treated 100 seconds showed best electric performance. In order to prove fluorine ions existing and CF4 plasma treatment not etch epitaxial layer, the secondary ion mass spectrometer confirmed fluorine ions truly existing in the sample which treatment time 100 seconds. Moreover, transmission electron microscopy showed that the sample treated time 100 seconds did not have etch phenomena. Atomic layer deposition is used to grow Al2O3 with thickness 10, 20, 30 and 40 nm. In electrical measurement, the device that deposited 20-nm-thickness Al2O3 showed excellent current ability, the forward saturation current of 210 mA/mm, transconductance (gm) of 44.1 mS/mm and threshold voltage of 2.28 V, ION/IOFF reach to 108. As IV concerning the breakdown voltage measurement, all kinds of samples can reach to 1450 V.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.340-340
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• 2010

본 연구에서는 유도결합형 플라즈마(ICP)를 이용하여, HBr/Ar 가스의 조성비 변화에 따른 Pb(Zr,Ti)$O_3$ 박막에 대한 식각특성을 연구 하였다. PZT박막의 식각속도와 Oxide($SiO_2$), Photo resister(PR)에 대한 식각선택비를 추출하였으며, 식각 메카니즘을 규명하기 위하여 optical emission spectroscopy(OES)와 double Langmuir prove(DLP) 이용하여 라디칼 특성변화와 이온 전류밀도(Ion current density)를 측정하였다.