• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2016

Thin films synthesized by plasma processes have been widely applied in a variety of industrial sectors. The structure control of thin film is one of prime factor in most of these applications. It is well known that the structure of this film is closely associated with plasma parameters and species of plasma which are electrons, ions, radical and neutrals in plasma processes. However the precise control of structure by plasma process is still limited due to inherent complexity, reproducibility and control problems in practical implementation of plasma processing. Therefore the study on the fundamental physical properties that govern the plasmas becomes more crucial for molecular scale control of film structure and corresponding properties for new generation nano scale film materials development and application. The thin films are formed through nucleation and growth stages during thin film depostion. Such stages involve adsorption, surface diffusion, chemical binding and other atomic processes at surfaces. This requires identification, determination and quantification of the surface activity of the species in the plasma. Specifically, the ions and neutrals have kinetic energies ranging from ~ thermal up to tens of eV, which are generated by electron impact of the polyatomic precursor, gas phase reaction, and interactions with the substrate and reactor walls. The present work highlights these aspects for the controlled and low-temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapour disposition (PECVD) of Si-based films like crystalline Si (c-Si), Si-quantum dot, and sputtered crystalline C by the design and control of radicals, plasmas and the deposition energy. Additionally, there is growing demand on the low-temperature deposition process with low hydrogen content by PECVD. The deposition temperature can be reduced significantly by utilizing alternative plasma concepts to lower the reaction activation energy. Evolution in this area continues and has recently produced solutions by increasing the plasma excitation frequency from radio frequency to ultra high frequency (UHF) and in the range of microwave. In this sense, the necessity of dedicated experimental studies, diagnostics and computer modelling of process plasmas to quantify the effect of the unique chemistry and structure of the growing film by radical and plasma control is realized. Different low-temperature PECVD processes using RF, UHF, and RF/UHF hybrid plasmas along with magnetron sputtering plasmas are investigated using numerous diagnostics and film analysis tools. The broad outlook of this work also outlines some of the 'Grand Scientific Challenges' to which significant contributions from plasma nanoscience-related research can be foreseen.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.1486-1489
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• 2009

Micro wall is fabricated using iterative screen printing that it is able to fabricate the pattern as low cost, simple process, formation of pattern at large area on the various substrates. In the process of micro wall fabrication using screen printing, the printing result with pressure change in process and improvement of surface roughness using hydrophillic plasma treatment are included. Height of micro wall increase linearly and precision of iteration is very high. Error rate of printed pattern width is very high, but change rate of width is under 10 %. Fabricated micro pattern have minimum width $48.75{\mu}m$ and maximum height $75.45{\mu}m$ with aspect ratio 1.55.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1998.07d
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• pp.1343-1345
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• 1998

This work was carried out to develop a pattern on the nanometer scale using plasma polymerization and plasma etching. This study is also aimed at developing a resist for the nano process and a vacuum lithography process. The thin films of plasma polymerization were fabricated by the plasma polymerization of inter-electrode capacitively coupled gas flow system. After delineating the pattern at accelerating voltage of 30[kV], ranging the dose of $1-500[{\mu}C/cm^2$], the pattern was developed with dry type and formed by plasma etching.

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

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.151-156
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• 2006

A method for fabrication of nano-scale GaN structure by inductively coupled plasma etching is proposed, exploiting a thermal dewetting of Pt thin film as an etch mask. The nano-scale Pt metal islands were formed by the dewetting of 2-dimensional film on $SiO_2$ dielectric materials during rapid thermal annealing process. For the case of 30 nm thick Pt films, pattern formation and dewetting was initiated at temperatures greater $600^{\circ}C$. Controlling the annealing temperature and time as well as the thickness of the Pt metal film affected the size and density of Pt islands. The activation energy for the formation of Pt metal island was calculated to be 23.2 KJ/mole. The islands show good resistance to dry etching by a $CF_4$ based plasma for dielectric etching indicating that the metal islands produced by dewetting are suitable for use as an etch mask in the fabrication of nano-scale structures.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.123-129
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• 2010

The fabrication of interconnect from titanium powders and $TiN_x$ powders is investigated. Corrosion-resistant titanium and $TiN_x$ are used as reinforcement in order to reveal high heat and corrosion resistance at the elevated temperature. We fabricated the plates for interconnect reinforced with $TiN_x$ by mixing titanium powders with 10 wt.% of nano-sized $TiN_x$. Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) was chosen for the sintering of these composites. The plate made of titanium powders and $TiN_x$ powders demonstrates higher corrosion resistance than that of the plate of titanium powders alone. The physical properties of specimens were analyzed by performing hardness test and biaxial strength test. The electrochemical properties, such as corrosion resistance and hydrogen permeability at high temperature, were also investigated. The microstructures of the specimens were investigated by FESEM and profiles of chemical compositions were analyzed by EDX.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.425-431
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• 2013

Microstructural and mechanical properties of Ni-YSZ fabricated using SPS processing have been investigated at various sintering temperatures. Our study shows samples to be applied as a SOFC anode have the proper porosity of 40% and high hardness when processed at $1100^{\circ}C$. These results are comparable to the values obtained at $100-200^{\circ}C$ higher sintering temperature reported by others. This result is important because when the fabrication processes are performed above $1100^{\circ}C$, the mechanical property starts to decrease drastically. This is caused by the fast grain coarsening at the higher temperature, which initiates a mismatch between thermal expansion coefficients of Ni and YSZ and induces cracks as well.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.32-32
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• 2011

Plasma etching is used in microelectronic processing for patterning of micro- and nano-scale devices. Commonly, optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for real-time endpoint detection for plasma etching. However, if the viewport for optical-emission monitoring becomes blurred by polymer film due to prolonged use of the etching system, optical-emission monitoring becomes impossible. In addition, when the exposed area ratio on the wafer is small, changes in the optical emission are so slight that it is almost impossible to detect the endpoint of etching. For this reason, as a simple method of detecting variations in plasma without contamination of the reaction chamber at low cost, a method of measuring plasma impedance is being examined. The object in this research is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) with statistical approach for real-time endpoint detection of $SiO_2$ etching. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe). However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ film on Si wafer is etched by fluorocarbon plasma on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance analysis is compared with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). From impedance data, we tried to analyze physical properties of plasma, and real-time endpoint detection can be achieved.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.419-422
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• 2010

This paper reports a simple and versatile technique for generating highly controllable sinusoidal nanostructures on the surface of poly-(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). The sinusoidal features were generated by oxidizing PDMS slabs with oxygen plasma, then stretching them by wrapping around a cylinderical surface, and finally allowing them to relax. The wavelength and amplitude could be finely controlled by varying the fabrication conditions such as duration of oxidation, diameter of the glass cylinder, duration of stretching, thickness of the PDMS slabs, and temperature during the second hardening process. The varied trends of the buckling patterns were characterized by using an atomic force microscope.