• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.125-129
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• 2016

In this study, we have investigated a high-temperature AlN nucleation layer and AlGaN epilayers on c-plane sapphire substrate by low-pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD). High resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Raman scattering measurements have been exploited to study the crystal quality, surface morphology, and residual strain of the HT-AlN nucleation layer. These analyses reveal that the insertion of an LT-AlN nucleation layer can improve the crystal quality, smooth the surface morphology of the HT-AlN nucleation layer and further reduce the threading dislocation density of AlGaN epifilms. The mechanism of inserting an LT-AlN nucleation layer to enhance the optical properties of HT-AlN nucleation layer and AlGaN epifilm are discussed from the viewpoint of driving force of reaction in this paper.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.575-579
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• 2012

Heteroepitaxial InP films have been grown on GaAs substrates to study the effects of the nucleation layer's surface roughness on the epitaxial layer's quality. For this, InP nucleation layers were grown at $400^{\circ}C$ with various ethyldimethylindium (EDMIn) flow rates and durations of growth, annealed at $6200^{\circ}C$ for 10 minutes and then InP epitaxial layers were grown at $550^{\circ}C$. It has been found that the nucleation layer's surface roughness is a critical factor on the epitaxial layer's quality. When a nucleation layer is grown with an EDMIn flow rate of 2.3 ${\mu}mole/min$ for 12 minutes, the surface roughness of the nucleation layer is minimum and the successively grown epitaxial layer's qualities are comparable to those of the homoepitaxial InP layers reported. The minimum full width at half maximum of InP (200) x-ray diffraction peak and that of near-band-edge peak from a 4.4 K photoluminescence are 60 arcmin and 6.33 meV, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.9
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• pp.486-492
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• 2016

Tungsten (W) thin film was deposited at $400^{\circ}C$ using pulsed chemical vapor deposition (pulsed CVD); film was then evaluated as a nucleation layer for W-plug deposition at the contact, with an ultrahigh aspect ratio of about 14~15 (top opening diameter: 240~250 nm, bottom diameter: 98~100 nm) for dynamic random access memory. The deposition stage of pulsed CVD has four steps resulting in one deposition cycle: (1) Reaction of $WF_6$ with $SiH_4$. (2) Inert gas purge. (3) $SiH_4$ exposure without $WF_6$ supply. (4) Inert gas purge while conventional CVD consists of the continuous reaction of $WF_6$ and $SiH_4$. The pulsed CVD-W film showed better conformality at contacts compared to that of conventional CVD-W nucleation layer. It was found that resistivities of films deposited by pulsed CVD were closely related with the phases formed and with the microstructure, as characterized by the grain size. A lower contact resistance was obtained by using pulsed CVD-W film as a nucleation layer compared to that of the conventional CVD-W nucleation layer, even though the former has a higher resistivity (${\sim}100{\mu}{\Omega}-cm$) than that of the latter (${\sim}25{\mu}{\Omega}-cm$). The plan-view scanning electron microscopy images after focused ion beam milling showed that the lower contact resistance of the pulsed CVD-W based W-plug fill scheme was mainly due to its better plug filling capability.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.132-132
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• 2011

The sheet resistance (Rs) of undoped GaN films on AlN/c-plane sapphire substrate was investigated in which the AlN films were grown by R. F. magetron sputtering method. The Rs was strongly dependent on the AlN layer thickness and semi-insulating behavior was observed. To clarify the effect of crystalline property on Rs, the crystal structure of the GaN films has been studied using x-ray scattering and transmission electron microscopy. A compressive strain was introduced by the presence of AlN nucleation layer (NL) and was gradually relaxed as increasing AlN NL thickness. This relaxation produced more threading dislocations (TD) of edge-type. Moreover, the surface morphology of the GaN film was changed at thicker AlN layer condition, which was originated by the crossover from planar to island grains of AlN. Thus, rough surface might produce more dislocations. The edge and mixed dislocations propagating from the interface between the GaN film and the AlN buffer layer affected the electric resistance of GaN film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.249-249
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• 2010

The effect of forming a passivation layer was investigated in superconformal Cu gap-filling of the nano-scale trench with atomic-layer deposited (ALD)-Ru glue layer. It was discovered that the nucleation and growth of Cu during metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) were affected by hydrogen plasma treatments. Specifically, as the plasma pretreatment time increased, Cu nucleation was suppressed proportionally. XPS and Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy indicated that hydrogen atoms passivate the Ru surface, which leads to suppression of Cu nucleation owing to prevention of adsorption of Cu precursor molecules. For gap-fill property, sub 60-nm ALD Ru trenches without the plasma pretreatment was blocked by overgrown Cu after the Cu deposition. With the plasma pretreatment, superconformal gap filling of the nano-scale trenches was achieved due to the suppression of Cu nucleation near the entrances of the trenches. Even the plasma pretreatment with bottom bias leads to the superconformal gap-filling.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.124-131
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• 2016

GaN and InN epilayers with nucleation layer (LT-buffer) were grown on (0001) sapphire substrates by radio-frequency plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (RF-MBE). As-grown and annealed GaN and InN nucleation layers grown at various growth condition were observed by reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED). When temperature of effusion cell for III source was very low, diffraction pattern with cubic symmetry was observed and zincblende nucleation layer was flattened easily by annealing. As cell temperature increased, LT-GaN and LT-InN showed typical diffraction pattern from wurtzite structure, and FWHM of (10-12) plane decreased remarkably which means much improved crystalline quality. Diffraction pattern was changed to be from streaky to spotty when plasma power was raised from 160 to 220 W because higher plasma power makes more nitrogen adatoms on the surface and suppressed surface mobility of III species. Therefore, though wurtzite nucleation layer was a little hard to be flattened compared to zincblende, higher cell temperature led to easier movement of III surface adatoms and resulted in better crystalline quality of GaN and InN epilayers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.246-246
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• 2010

As the trench width in the interconnect technology decreases down to nano-scale below 50 nm, superconformal gap-filling process of Cu becomes very critical for Cu interconnect. Obtaining superconfomral gap-filling of Cu in the nano-scale trench or via hole using MOCVD is essential to control nucleation and growth of Cu. Therefore, nucleation of Cu must be suppressed near the entrance surface of the trench while Cu layer nucleates and grows at the bottom of the trench. In this study, suppression of Cu nucleation was achieved by treating the Ru barrier metal surface with capacitively coupled hydrogen plasma. Effect of hydrogen plasma pretreatment on Cu nucleation was investigated during MOCVD on atomic-layer deposited (ALD)-Ru barrier surface. It was found that the nucleation and growth of Cu was affected by hydrogen plasma treatment condition. In particular, as the plasma pretreatment time and electrode power increased, Cu nucleation was inhibited. Experimental data suggests that hydrogen atoms from the plasma was implanted onto the Ru surface, which resulted in suppression of Cu nucleation owing to prevention of adsorption of Cu precursor molecules. Due to the hydrogen plasma treatment of the trench on Ru barrier surface, the suppression of Cu nucleation near the entrance of the trenches was achieved and then led to the superconformal gap filling of the nano-scale trenches. In the case for without hydrogen plasma treatments, however, over-grown Cu covered the whole entrance of nano-scale trenches. Detailed mechanism of nucleation suppression and resulting in nano-scale superconformal gap-filling of Cu will be discussed in detail.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.196-199
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• 2004

Seedlayers with low surface energy which increases the density of nucleation sites in the initial growth region of the recording layer deposited on them was studied to reduce grain size in recording layer. The seedlayer with low surface energy was so effective to attain finer grain in magnetic upper-layers. The Ni-Fe-O intermediate layer with low surface energy was found to be effective in reduction of grain size as well as magnetic cluster size of Co-Cr-Ta-Pt recording layer. Furthermore, the reduction of grain size in Co-Cr-Ta-Pt recording layer on Ni-Fe-O intermediate layer with low surface energy led to decrease the noise level in the high recording density region.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.39 no.12
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• pp.1177-1182
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• 2002

Highly surfaced and porous hydroxyapatite body was artificially formed on the surface of a shell through a reaction with phosphatic solutions. As a result of qualitative observation, hydroxyapatite seemed to be crystallized by solution-precipitation process accelerated by the nucleation surface of a shell. The process of formation of hydroxyapatite layer was as follows. 1. Dense nucleation and growth on the surface of solid phase 2. Formation of microporous layer by contact and entanglement between crystallines 3. diffusion of solution through the porous layer and thickness growth of layer towards inside

• ETRI Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.339-346
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• 1997

Good quality a-axis oriented thin films of $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-x}$ may be grown by the use of a $PrBa_2Cu_3O_{7-x}$ (PBCO) layer as a template. Here we present a detailed study of the nucleation of the PBCO layer, explaining the orientations observed. It is determined that the wavy surface of a $LaSrGaO_4$ (LSGO) (100) substrate consists of the {101} planes by observing cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy images of the interface between the PBCO film and the substrate. The images and selected area diffraction patterns show that a mixed c-and b-axis oriented PBCO layer was initially grown on the substrate, followed by pure b-axis oriented PBCO growth. We explain that the c-axis oriented growth is the result of the growth of the PBCO (019) planes on the LSGO (101) planes. We conclude that the nucleation and growth of the PBCO films at the initial stages depends on the crystallographic plane of the substrate surfaces, however, as the film grows further, the kinetics of the deposition process favors b-axis oriented growth.