• Particle and aerosol research
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.95-109
• /
• 2009

A low temperature plasma process has been widely used for semiconductor fabrication and can also be applied for the preparation of solar cell, MEMS or NEMS, but they are notorious in the point of particle contamination. The nano-sized particles can be generated in the low temperature plasma process and they can induce several serious defects on the performance and quality of microelectronic devices and also on the cost of final products. For the preparation of high quality thin films of high efficiency by the low temperature plasma process, it is desirable to increase the deposition rate of thin films with reducing the particle contamination in the plasmas. In this paper, we introduced the studies on the generation and growth of nanoparticles in the low temperature plasmas and tried to introduce the recent interesting studies on nanoparticle generation in the plasma reactors.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
• /
• v.51 no.9
• /
• pp.413-416
• /
• 2002

It was reported that low temperature plasma developed by our group was apparently homogeneous and stable at atmospheric pressure, and was generated if the alumina was used as a dielectric insulating material and Ar gas as a plasma gas. This is a structure in which the dielectric materials are covered and arranged in parallel in the one side of electrode. In this experiment, we discovered that dielectric material was important to generate normal electric discharge. To examine the effect of dielectric material on the electric discharge characteristic, the voltage and current of the plasma was measured and the electrical effect of dielectric material was examined. Also, it was applied to an etching of tin oxide films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2016.02a
• /
• pp.93-93
• /
• 2016

Large scale integrated circuits (LSIs) has been improved by the shrinkage of the circuit dimensions. The smaller chip sizes and increase in circuit density require the miniaturization of the line-width and space between metal interconnections. Therefore, an extreme precise control of the critical dimension and pattern profile is necessary to fabricate next generation nano-electronics devices. The pattern profile control of plasma etching with an accuracy of sub-nanometer must be achieved. To realize the etching process which achieves the problem, understanding of the etching mechanism and precise control of the process based on the real-time monitoring of internal plasma parameters such as etching species density, surface temperature of substrate, etc. are very important. For instance, it is known that the etched profiles of organic low dielectric (low-k) films are sensitive to the substrate temperature and density ratio of H and N atoms in the H2/N2 plasma [1]. In this study, we introduced a feedback control of actual substrate temperature and radical density ratio monitored in real time. And then the dependence of etch rates and profiles of organic films have been evaluated based on the substrate temperatures. In this study, organic low-k films were etched by a dual frequency capacitively coupled plasma employing the mixture of H2/N2 gases. A 100-MHz power was supplied to an upper electrode for plasma generation. The Si substrate was electrostatically chucked to a lower electrode biased by supplying a 2-MHz power. To investigate the effects of H and N radical on the etching profile of organic low-k films, absolute H and N atom densities were measured by vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy [2]. Moreover, using the optical fiber-type low-coherence interferometer [3], substrate temperature has been measured in real time during etching process. From the measurement results, the temperature raised rapidly just after plasma ignition and was gradually saturated. The temporal change of substrate temperature is a crucial issue to control of surface reactions of reactive species. Therefore, by the intervals of on-off of the plasma discharge, the substrate temperature was maintained within ${\pm}1.5^{\circ}C$ from the set value. As a result, the temperatures were kept within $3^{\circ}C$ during the etching process. Then, we etched organic films with line-and-space pattern using this system. The cross-sections of the organic films etched for 50 s with the substrate temperatures at $20^{\circ}C$ and $100^{\circ}C$ were observed by SEM. From the results, they were different in the sidewall profile. It suggests that the reactions on the sidewalls changed according to the substrate temperature. The precise substrate temperature control method with real-time temperature monitoring and intermittent plasma generation was suggested to contribute on realization of fine pattern etching.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2003.12a
• /
• pp.27-32
• /
• 2003

The effect of non-thermal plasma on diffusion flames in co-flow jets has been studied experimentally by adopting a dielectric barrier discharge technique. The generation of streamers was enhanced with a flame due to increased reduced electric fields by high temperature burnt gas and the abundance of ions in the flame region. The effect of streamers on flame behavior reveals that the flame length was significantly decreased as the applied voltage increased and the yellow luminosity by the radiation of soot particles was also significantly reduced. The formation of PAH and soot was influenced appreciably by the non-thermal plasma, while the flame temperature and the concentration of major species were not influence much with the plasma generation. The results demonstrated that the application of non-thermal plasma can be a viable technique in controlling soot generation in flames with low power consumption in the order of 1 W.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.103-107
• /
• 2019

Low-temperature plasma (LTP) ionization is one of the ambient ionization methods typically used in mass spectrometry (MS) for fast screening of chemicals with minimal or no sample preparation. In spite of various advantages of LTP ionization method, including simple instrumentation and in-situ analysis, more general applications of the method are limited due to poor desorption of analytes with low volatilities and low ionization efficiencies in the negative ion mode. In order to overcome these limitations, an ultrasonic vibrator of a commercial hand-held humidifier was interfaced with an LTP ionization source, which generated microdroplets from sample solutions and assisted with LTP ionization. Ionization behaviors of various chemicals in microdroplet-assisted LTP (MA LTP) were tested and compared with typical LTP ionization from dried samples applied on a surface. MA LTP efficiently ionized small organic, amino, and fatty acids with low volatilities and high polarities, which were hardly ionized using the standard LTP method. Facile interaction of LTP with ultrafine droplets generated by ultrasonic resonator allows efficient ionization of relatively non-volatile and polar analytes both in the positive and negative ion modes.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.409-412
• /
• 2002

Under atmospheric pressure, apparently homogeneous and stable plasma can be generated from insulator barrier rf plasma generators each of which has an rf powered cathode and a grounded anode covered with a dielectric insulating material. In order to characterize the generating plasma under atmospheric pressure, some basic characteristic have been evaluated by the Langmuire probe method as well as by optical emission spectroscopy. From the result of plasma characteristics, the generated plasma was verified to be nonequilibrium; T(electron)>T(excitation)>T(gas). High rate Si(100) etching (($1.5{\mu}m$/min) were achieved by using He plasma containing a small amount of $CF_4$.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.44.2-44.2
• /
• 2009

Polycrystalline materials suchas yttria and alumina have been applied as a plasma resisting material for the plasma processing chamber. However, polycrystal line material may easily generate particles and the particles are sources of contamination during the plasma enhanced process. Amorphous material can be suitable to prevent particle generation due to absence of grain-boundaries. We manufactured nitrogen-containing $SiO_2-Al_2O_3-Y_2O_3$ based glasses with various contents of silicon and fixed nitrogen content. The thermal properties, mechanical properties and plasma etching rate were evaluated and compared for the different composition samples. The plasma etching behavior was estimated using XPS with depth profiling. From the result, the plasma etching rate highly depends on the silicon content and it may results from very low volatile temperature of SiF4 generated during plasma etching. The silicon concentration at the plasma etched surface was very low besides the concentration of yttrium and aluminum was relatively high than that of silicon due to high volatile temperature of fluorine compounds which consisted with aluminum and yttrium. Therefore, we conclude that the samples having low silicon content should be considered to obtain low plasma etching rate for the plasma resisting material.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.133-138
• /
• 2017

We investigated the interface defect engineering and reaction mechanism of reduced transition layer and nitride layer in the active plasma process on 4H-SiC by the plasma reaction with the rapid processing time at the room temperature. Through the combination of experiment and theoretical studies, we clearly observed that advanced active plasma process on 4H-SiC of oxidation and nitridation have improved electrical properties by the stable bond structure and decrease of the interfacial defects. In the plasma oxidation system, we showed that plasma oxide on SiC has enhanced electrical characteristics than the thermally oxidation and suppressed generation of the interface trap density. The decrease of the defect states in transition layer and stress induced leakage current (SILC) clearly showed that plasma process enhances quality of $SiO_2$ by the reduction of transition layer due to the controlled interstitial C atoms. And in another processes, the Plasma Nitridation (PN) system, we investigated the modification in bond structure in the nitride SiC surface by the rapid PN process. We observed that converted N reacted through spontaneous incorporation the SiC sub-surface, resulting in N atoms converted to C-site by the low bond energy. In particular, electrical properties exhibited that the generated trap states was suppressed with the nitrided layer. The results of active plasma oxidation and nitridation system suggest plasma processes on SiC of rapid and low temperature process, compare with the traditional gas annealing process with high temperature and long process time.

• 전기의세계
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.79-87
• /
• 1976

This paper is to investigate the A.C generation of MHD engine, converting directly the kinetic energy of conductive gas in high temperature to electric power by the effect of magnetic field. It is known that there are at least two kinds of method in A.C MHD power generation; one, by sending stationary plasma flow in an alternating or rotating magnetic field and the other, by transmission of pulse type plasma flow in uniform and constant magnetic field, former method is adopted here. In order to raise the total efficiency of close cycle in combination with nuclear power and MHD genertaion, an argon plasma jet is utilized as heat source, which is not mixed with the seed material, and the design data are obtained for A.C MHD generation in small capacity, but induced voltage and power output have the maximum values, 15 voltages and 7.5W respectively due to plasma flow with low conductivity and weak magnetic field.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.22 no.8
• /
• pp.937-944
• /
• 2013

Ozone concentrations in water and air, and resulting disinfective properties, were measured following generation by either an ozone generator or a low-temperature dielectric barrier discharge plasma generator. In freshwater, ozone concentrations of 0.81 and 0.48 mg/L $O_3$ were observed after the ozone and plasma generators had been operated for five minutes, respectively. Higher levels of dissolved $O_3$ were attained more easily with the ozone generator. In seawater, both systems were capable of creating concentrations greater than 3.00 mg/L $O_3$ after 5minutes of operation. Higher ozone levels were attained more easily in seawater than in freshwater. Rates of bacterial sterilization in seawater after three minutes were 96% and 88%, using the plasma and ozone generators, respectively. In freshwater, higher concentrations of ozone were released into the atmosphere by the ozone generator than by the plasma generator. In creating equivalent levels of dissolved ozone in freshwater, the plasma generator released 4.5 times more ozone into the atmosphere than did the ozone generator. This shows that ozone generators are more effective than plasma generators for creating ozonated water. For the same concentration of dissolved ozone in seawater, more ozone was released into the atmosphere using the ozone generator than using the plasma generator. Therefore, with regard to air pollution, plasma generators seem to be less expensive than ozone generators.