• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1993.07b
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• pp.612-614
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• 1993

Sputtering requires a way to bombard the target with sufficient momentum. Positive ions are the most convenient source since their energy and momentum can be controlled by applying a potential to the target. Although many types of discharges have been used for sputtering, magnetrons are now the most widely used because of the high ion current densities. Namely, plasma near the target electrode is confined by magnetic field using permanent magnet, so that the collision probability is increased. It is important to develop RF magnetron sputtering system which has many excellent merits compared with conventional methods. Our study aims to develop 1 kW RF source(13.56 MHz, TR type) and to accumulate the design and construction technology of RF magnetron sputter-deposition system. We developed 1 kW RF sputtering system to deposit thin film. These films are deposited by this RF source matched by auto-matching system using primarily argon gas. Target of Au, Ni, Al, and $SiO_2$ was well deposited on the argon pressure of 5-10 mTorr.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.22.1-22.1
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• 2011

In this study, off-axis RF magnetron sputtering was used for the crystallized ITO thin films at a low temperature of about $120^{\circ}C$ instead of the conventional RF sputtering because the off-axis sputtering can avoid the damage for the plasma as well as fabrication of thin films with a high quality. The structural, optical and electrical properties of the obtained films depending on deposition parameters, such as sputtering power, gas flow and working pressure, have been investigated. The ITO thin films grown on PET substrate at $120^{\circ}C$ were crystallized with a (222) preferred orientation. 100-nm thick ITO films showed a resistivity of about $4.2{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}-cm$ and a transmittance of about 81% at a wavelength of 550nm. The transmittance of the ITO thin films by an insertion of $SiO_2$ thin films on ITO films was improved.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.290-290
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• 2011

In this study Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited on p-type Si substrates using a Radio-Frequency magnetron Sputtering system. The DLC film was deposited by bombarding graphite target with a N2/Ar plasma mixture with various conditions: substrate, pressure, deposition time, temperature of substrate, power and ratio of gas mixture. The effect on the conduction and hardness of DLC thin films were investigated. The conduction of DLC films were measured by I-V measurement. In addition, Raman analysis was performed to study the chemical bonding structure. The hardness was measured by Nano indentation. Atomic Force Microscopy was used for determined surface morphology of DLC film.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.527-532
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• 2000

The performance of ac plasma display panels (PDP) is influenced strongly by the surface glow discharge characteristics on the MgO thin films. This paper deals with the surface glow discharge characteristics and some physical properties of MgO thin films prepared by reactive RF planar unbalanced magnetron sputtering in connection with ac PDP. The samples prepared with dc bias voltage of -10V showed lower discharge voltage and lower erosion rate byion bombardment than those samples prepared by conventional magnetron sputtering or E-beam evaporation. The main factor that improves the discharge characteristics by bias voltage is considered to be due to the morphology changes or crystal structure of the MgO thin film by ion bombardement during deposition process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.05c
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• pp.95-98
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• 2003

Tin doped indium oxide(ITO) films, which is widely used as a transparent conductor in optoelectronic devices such as solar cell, liquid crystal display, plasma display panel, thermal heater, and other sensors, were prepared by using the capacitively coupled DC magnetron sputtering method. The influence of the substrate temperature, working gas pressure and deposition time on the electrical, optical and morphological properties were investigated experimentally. ITO films with the optimum growth conditions showed resistivity of $2.36{\times}10^{-4}(\Omega}-cm$ and transmittance of 86.28% for a film 680nm thick in the wavelength range of the visible spectrum.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.593-600
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• 2013

The asymmetric pulsed DC reactive magnetron sputtering system is widely used for the high quality plasma sputtering process such as a thin film deposition. In asymmetric pulsed DC power supply a reverse voltage is applied to the target periodically to minimize arc discharging effect. When sputtering in the mid-frequency range (20-350 kHz), the periodic target voltage reversals suppress arc formation at the target and provide long-term process stability. Thus, high quality, defect-free coatings of these materials can now be deposited at competitive rates. In this paper, a new style asymmetric pulsed DC power supply including mid-transformer is presented. In the proposed, an energy recovery circuit is adopted to reduce the mutual inductance of the transformer. As a result, the system dynamics of the voltage control loop is increased highly and the non-linear voltage boosting effect of the conventional system is removed. This work was proved through simulation and laboratory based experimental study.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.100-101
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• 2012

The plasma damage free and room temperature processedthin film deposition technology is essential for realization of various next generation organic microelectronic devices such as flexible AMOLED display, flexible OLED lighting, and organic photovoltaic cells because characteristics of fragile organic materials in the plasma process and low glass transition temperatures (Tg) of polymer substrate. In case of directly deposition of metal oxide thin films (including transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS)) on the organic layers, plasma damages against to the organic materials is fatal. This damage is believed to be originated mainly from high energy energetic particles during the sputtering process such as negative oxygen ions, reflected neutrals by reflection of plasma background gas at the target surface, sputtered atoms, bulk plasma ions, and secondary electrons. To solve this problem, we developed the NBAS (Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering) process as a plasma damage free and room temperature processed sputtering technology. As a result, electro-optical properties of NBAS processed ITO thin film showed resistivity of $4.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}m$ and high transmittance (>90% at 550 nm) with nano- crystalline structure at room temperature process. Furthermore, in the experiment result of directly deposition of TCO top anode on the inverted structure OLED cell, it is verified that NBAS TCO deposition process does not damages to the underlying organic layers. In case of deposition of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film on the plastic polymer substrate, the room temperature processed sputtering coating of high quality TCO thin film is required. During the sputtering process with higher density plasma, the energetic particles contribute self supplying of activation & crystallization energy without any additional heating and post-annealing and forminga high quality TCO thin film. However, negative oxygen ions which generated from sputteringtarget surface by electron attachment are accelerated to high energy by induced cathode self-bias. Thus the high energy negative oxygen ions can lead to critical physical bombardment damages to forming oxide thin film and this effect does not recover in room temperature process without post thermal annealing. To salve the inherent limitation of plasma sputtering, we have been developed the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process as the high quality oxide thin film deposition process at room temperature. The MFSS process is effectively eliminate or suppress the negative oxygen ions bombardment damage by the plasma limiter which composed permanent magnet array. As a result, electro-optical properties of MFSS processed ITO thin film (resistivity $3.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, transmittance 95% at 550 nm) have approachedthose of a high temperature DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) ITO thin film were. Also, AOS (a-IGZO) TFTs fabricated by MFSS process without higher temperature post annealing showed very comparable electrical performance with those by DMS process with $400^{\circ}C$ post annealing. They are important to note that the bombardment of a negative oxygen ion which is accelerated by dc self-bias during rf sputtering could degrade the electrical performance of ITO electrodes and a-IGZO TFTs. Finally, we found that reduction of damage from the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment drives improvement of crystalline structure in the ITO thin film and suppression of the sub-gab states in a-IGZO semiconductor thin film. For realization of organic flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates, gas barrier coatings are required to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency flexible AMOLEDs needs an extremely low water vapor transition rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$. The key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required (under ${\sim}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$) is the suppression of nano-sized defect sites and gas diffusion pathways among the grain boundaries. For formation of high quality single inorganic gas barrier layer, we developed high density nano-structured Al2O3 single gas barrier layer usinga NBAS process. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to a nano- crystalline phase with various grain sizes in a single inorganic thin film. As a result, the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film have improved order of magnitude compared with that of conventional $Al_2O_3$ layers made by the RF magnetron sputteringprocess under the same sputtering conditions; the WVTR of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film was about $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ by just single layer.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2011

A $ZrO_2$ thin film as a corrosion protective layer was deposited on Zircaloy-4 (Z-4) clad material using $N_2O$ as a reactive gas by RF reactive magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The Z-4 substrate was located in plasma or out of plasma during the $ZrO_2$ deposition process to investigate mechanical and corrosive properties for the plasma immersion. Tetragonal and monoclinic phases were existed in $ZrO_2$ thin film immersed in plasma. We observed that a grain size of the $ZrO_2$ thin film immersed in plasma state is larger than that of the $ZrO_2$ thin film out of plasma state. In addition, the corrosive property of the $ZrO_2$ thin films in the plasma was characterized using the weight gains of Z-4 after the corrosion test. Compared with the $ZrO_2$ thin film immersed out of plasma, the weight gains of $ZrO_2$ thin film immersed in plasma were larger. These results indicate that the $ZrO_2$ film with the tetragonal phase in the $ZrO_2$ can protect the Z-4 from corrosive phenomena.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.273-273
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• 2012

최근 스마트 윈도우, 자가세정(Self-Cleaning), 김서림방지(Anti-Fogging), 디스플레이 표시장치, 대전방지 코팅 등 다각적으로 활용이 가능한 PTFE (Ploytetrafluoroethylene)를 Sol-gel, Sputtering, Spin-Coating, CVD (Chemical vapor deposition)방법을 이용하여 낮은 표면에너지와 나노사이즈의 표면 거칠기를 가지는 $150^{\circ}$ 이상의 초-발수성 표면에 대한 많은 연구가 진행되고 있다. 본 실험에서는 영구자석을 이용한 고밀도 플라즈마로 높은 점착성과, 균일한 박막 및 대 면적 공정이 가능한 RF-magnetron sputtering방법을 이용하여 Plasma etching으로 표면적의 거칠기와 낮은 표면에너지를 만든 뒤, 발수특성을 가진 PTFE를 증착하여 접촉각 변화와 구조적 및 광학적 특성을 측정하였다. AFM (Atomic Force Microscope)측정결과 100 w에서 가장 높은 1.7 nm의 RMS(Root mean square)값이 측정되었고, 접촉각 측정결과 Plasma etched glass는 25 w에서 125 w로 증가함에 따라 친수성을 나타내었으며, 100 w에서 가장 낮은 $15^{\circ}$의 접촉각을 나타내었다. PTFE박막을 증착하였을 때는 100 w에서 $150^{\circ}$의 초발수 특성을 나타내었고, 투과율 측정 결과 85%이상의 높은 투과율을 나타내었다. Plasma etching을 이용한 PTFE 발수 특성은 비가 오면 자동으로 이물질이 씻겨 내리는 자동차 유리등의 개발이 가능하고, 높은 투과율이 요구되는 액정표시장치(LCD)같은 차세대 대형 디스플레이의 표면 코팅에 사용이 가능 할 것이라 사료된다. 본 연구는 중소기업청에서 지원하는 2011년도 산학연 공동기술개발 지원사업의 연구수행으로 인한 결과물임을 밝힙니다.