• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.218-225
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• 2013

The densification behavior and strength of sintered reaction bonded silicon nitrides (SRBSN) that contain $Lu_2O_3-SiO_2$ additives were improved by the addition of fine Si powder. Dense specimens (relative density: 99.5%) were obtained by gas-pressure sintering (GPS) at $1850^{\circ}C$ through the addition of fine Si. In contrast, the densification of conventional specimens did not complete at $1950^{\circ}C$. The fine Si decreased the onset temperature of shrinkage and increased the shrinkage rate because the additive helped the compaction of green bodies and induced the formation of fine $Si_3N_4$ particles after nitridation and sintering at and above $1600^{\circ}C$. The amount of residual $SiO_2$ within the specimens was not strongly affected by adding fine Si powder because most of the $SiO_2$ layer that had formed on the fine Si particles decomposed during nitridation. The maximum strength and fracture toughness of the specimens were 991 MPa and $8.0MPa{\cdot}m^{1/2}$, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2016

Silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are generally used as antireflection layers and passivation layers on solar cells. In this study, we investigated the properties of silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by PECVD. The passivation properties of $SiN_x:H$ are focused on by making the antireflection properties identical. To make equivalent optical properties of silicon nitride films, the refractive index and thickness of the films are fixed at 2.0 and 90 nm, respectively. This limit makes it easier to evaluate silicon nitride film as a passivation layer in realistic application situations. Next, the effects of the mixture ratio of the process gases with silane ($SiH_4$) and ammonia ($NH_3$) on the passivation qualities of silicon nitride film are evaluated. The absorption coefficient of each film was evaluated by spectrometric ellipsometry, the minority carrier lifetimes were evaluated by quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC) measurement. The optical properties were obtained using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. The interface properties were determined by capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement and the film components were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy detection (RBS) - elastic recoil detection (ERD). In hydrogen passivation, gas ratios of 1:1 and 1:3 show the best surface passivation property among the samples.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.431-436
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• 2017

SiAlON-based ceramics are some of the most typical oxynitride ceramic materials, which can be used as cutting tools for heat-resistant super-alloys (HRSA). SiAlON can be fabricated by using gas-pressure reactive sintering from the raw materials, nitrides and oxides such as $Si_3N_4$, AlN, $Al_2O_3$, and $Yb_2O_3$. In this study, we fabricate $Yb_{m/3}Si_{12-(m+n)}Al_{m+n}O_nN_{16-n}$ (m=0.3, n=1.9, 2.3, 2.7) ceramics by using gas-pressure sintering at different sintering temperatures. Then, the densification behavior, phase formation, microstructure, and hardness of the sintered specimens are characterized. We obtain a fully densified specimen with ${\beta}$-SiAlON after gas-pressure sintering at $1820^{\circ}C$ for 90 min. under 10 atm $N_2$ pressure. These SiAlON ceramic materials exhibited hardness values of ~92.9 HRA. The potential of these SiAlON ceramics for cutting tool application is also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.117-128
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• 1999

This study was carried out to investigate the surface characteristics of SCM440 steel nitrided with various nitrogen contents for 7 hours at $520^{\circ}C$ by using micro-pulse plasma nitriding apparatus of hot wall type. The effects of oxidation treatment was also investigated on plasma nitrided in 30% nitrogen and post oxidized SCM440 steel at $500^{\circ}C$ in $H_2O$ atmosphere. The ${\gamma}^{\prime}-Fe_4N$ and ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}N$ phases were detected in compound layer of the nitrided steel. As the content of nitrogen in plasma gas increased with 30, 50, 70% on the micro-pulse plasma nitriding for SCM440 steel, the thickness of compound, diffusion layer and the surface hardness were increased. From the wear test results, the best wear resistance was appeared in the condition of ductile ${\gamma}^{\prime}-Fe_4N$ phase formed specimen at 30% nitrogen, whereas that of the treated with 50% and 70% nitrogen decreased owing to the exfoliation of brittle ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}N$ phase in the compound layer. On the nitrided and subsequently oxidized SCM440 steel, the surface layer consisted of $Fe_3O_4$, ${\gamma}^{\prime}-Fe_4N$, and ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}N$ phases. In these treatments, the dissolution of nitrides affect hardness and hardening depth in compound and diffusion layers. For the nitrided in 30% nitrogen and post oxidized specimen at $500^{\circ}C$ for 1 hour, the wear resistance was lower than that of the only nitrided one in 30% nitrogen but higher than those of the nitrided ones in 50 and 70% nitrogen.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.166-173
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• 1999

Commercial carbon steels containing 0.2~0.55 wt.----C were plasma-nitrided or plasma nitrocarburized at $550^{\circ}C$ for 21.6Ks using $H_2-N_2$ or $H_2-N_2$-CO mixed gas respectively. The characteristics of hardening and wear-resistance of each treatment were studied and compared. And also microstructure of nitrided layer and nitrides formed in compound layer near surface were studied. All plasma-nitrided steels investigated showed remarkable increase of surface hardness with the increase of carbon content. But nitrocarburized steels resulted in higher surface-hardness than plasma-nitrided steels, which means that nitrocarburized has higher surface-hardening effect. Plasma-nitrided steels showed hardness increase in through-thickness direction near surface. And also nitrocarburized steels showed similar hardness distribution in through-thickness direction to that of plasma-nitrided steel. However, nitrocarburized steels had higher cross-sectional maximum-hardness than plasma-nitrided steels as much as 100Hv. Wear test showed that the amount of specific wear was reduced by both plasma-nitriding and nitrocarburized, showing that the amount of specific wear was not related to the hardness. But non-treated specimen showed that the amount of specific wear was related to the hardness.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.40-45
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• 2003

A series of experiments has been carried out to investigate the effect of titanium, boron and nitrogen on the microstructure and toughness of simulated heat affected zone (HAZ) in quenched and tempered (QT) type 490MPa yield strength steels. For acquiring the same strength level, the carbon content and carbon equivalent could be lowered remarkably with a small titanium and boron addition due to the hardenability effect of boron during quenching process. Following the thermal cycle of large heat input, the coarsened grain HAZ (CGHAZ) of conventional quenched and tempered (QT) type 490MPa yield strength steels exhibited a coarse bainitic or ferrite side plate structure with large prior austenite grains. While, titanium and boron bearing QT type 490MPa yield strength steels were characterized by the microstructure in the CGHAZ, consisting mainly of the fine intragranular ferrite microstructure. Toughness of the simulated HAZ was mainly controlled by the proper Ceq level, and the ratio of Ti/N rather than titanium and nitrogen contents themselves. In the titanium­boron added QT steels, the optimum Ti/N ratio for excellent HAZ toughness was around 2.0, which was much lower than the known Ti/N stoichiometric ratio, 3.4. With reducing Ti/N ratio from the stoichiometric ratio, austenite grain size in the coarse grained HAZ became finer, indicating that the effective fine precipitates could be sufficiently obtained even with lower Ti/N level by adding boron simultaneously. Along with typical titanium carbo­nitrides, various forms of complex titanium­ and boron­based precipitates, like TiN­MnS­BN, were often observed in the simulated CGHAZ, which may act as stable nuclei for ferrite during cooling of weld thermal cycles

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.145-145
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• 2011

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on III-nitrides compound semiconductors have achieved a high performance device available for display and illumination sector. However, the conventional c-plane oriented LED structures are still showing several problems given by the quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) due to the effects of strong piezoelectric and spontaneous polarizations. The QCSE results in spatial separation of electron and hole wavefunctions in quantum wells, thereby decreasing the internal quantum efficiency and red-shifting the emission wavelength. Due to demands for improvement of device performance, nonpolar structure has been attracting attentions, since the quantum wells grown on nonpolar templates are free from the QCSE. However, current device performance for nonpolar LEDs is still lower than those for conventional LEDs. In this study, we discuss the potential possibilities of nonpolar LEDs for commercialization. In this study, we characterized current-light output power relation of the a-plane InGaN/GaN LEDs structures with the variation of quantum well structures. On-wafer electroluminescence measurements were performed with short pulse (10 us) and low duty factor (1 %) conditions applied for eliminating thermal effects. The well and barrier widths, and indium compositions in quantum well structures were changed to analyze the efficiency droop phenomenon.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.85-88
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• 2008

We calculated the electronic structures of substituted cobalt nitrides, that is $FeCo_3N$ and $NiCo_3Ni$, by using the all electron fullpotential linearized augmented plane-wave (FLAPW) energy band method, and investigated the influence on the magnetic properties of $Co_4N$ due to the substitution of Co atom located at corner sites by iron and nickel atoms. We found that the magnetic moments of CoII atoms located at the face-center positions in these compounds are almost same to that of $Co_4N$. The magnetic moments of Fe and Ni atoms in $FeCo_3N$ and $NiCo_3Ni$ are 3.086 and $0.795\;{\mu}_B$, and they have the localized nature of magnetism.

• Proceedings of the Korea Association of Crystal Growth Conference
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• 1996.06b
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• pp.285-309
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• 1996

Non oxide ceramics such as nitrides of transition metals have shown significant potential for future economic impact, in diverse applications in ceramic, aerospace and electronic industries, as refractory products, abrasives and cutting tools, aircraft components, and semi-conductor substrates amid others. Combustion synthesis has become an attractive alternative to the conventional furnace technology to produce these materials cheaply, faster and at a higher level of purity. However he process os highly exothermic and manifests complex dynamics due to its strongly non-linear nature. In order to develop an understanding of this process and to study the effect of operational parameters on the final outcome, numerical modeling is necessary, which would generated essential knowledge to help scale-up the process. the model is based on a system of parabolic-hyperbolic partial differential equations representing the heat, mass and momentum conservation relations. The model also takes into account structural change due to sintering and volumetric expansion, and their effect on the transport properties of the system. The solutions of these equations exhibit steep moving spatial gradients in the form of reaction fronts, propagating in space with variable velocity, which gives rise to varying time scales. To cope with the possibility of extremely abrupt changes in the values of the solution over very short distances, adaptive mesh techniques can be applied to resolve the high activity regions by ordering grid points in appropriate places. To avoid a control volume formulation of the solution of partial differential equations, a simple orthogonal, adaptive-mesh technique is employed. This involves separate adaptation in the x and y directions. Through simple analysis and numerical examples, the adaptive mesh is shown to give significant increase in accuracy in the computations.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.29.1-29.1
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• 2009

Fabrication of good quality P-type GaN remained as a challenge for many years which hindered the III-V nitrides from yielding visible light emitting devices. Firstly Amano et al succeeded in obtaining P-type GaN films using Mg doping and post Low Energy Electron Beam Irradiation (LEEBI) treatment. However only few region of the P-GaN was activated by LEEBI treatment. Later Nakamura et al succeeded in producing good quality P-GaN by thermal annealing method in which the as deposited P-GaN samples were annealed in N2 ambient at temperatures above $600^{\circ}C$. The carrier concentration of N type and P-type GaN differs by one order which have a major effect in AlGaN based deep UV-LED fabrication. So increasing the P-type GaN concentration becomes necessary. In this study we have proposed a novel method of activating P-type GaN by electrochemical potentiostatic method. Hydrogen bond in the Mg-H complexes of the P-type GaN is removed by electrochemical reaction using KOH solution as an electrolyte solution. Full structure LED sample grown by MOCVD serves as anode and platinum electrode serves as cathode. Experiments are performed by varying KOH concentration, process time and applied voltage. Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) analysis is performed to determine the hydrogen concentration in the P-GaN sample activated by annealing and electrochemical method. Results suggest that the hydrogen concentration is lesser in P-GaN sample activated by electrochemical method than conventional annealing method. The output power of the LED is also enhanced for full structure samples with electrochemical activated P-GaN. Thus we propose an efficient method for P-GaN activation by electrochemical reaction. 30% improvement in light output is obtained by electrochemical activation method.