• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.155-165
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• 2010

As a promising candidate to replace the conventional floating gate flash memories, polysilicon-oxide-nitride-oxidesilicon (SONOS)-type nonvolatile semiconductor memories have been investigated widely in the past several years. SONOS-type memories have some advantages over the conventional floating gate flash memories, such as lower operating voltage, excellent endurance and compatibility with standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. However, their operating speed and date retention characteristics are still the bottlenecks to limit the applications of SONOS-type memories. Recently, various approaches have been used to make a trade-off between the operating speed and the date retention characteristics. Application of high-k dielectrics to SONOS-type memories is a predominant route. This article provides the state-of-the-art research progress of high-k dielectrics applicable to SONOS-type nonvolatile semiconductor memories. It begins with a short description of working mechanism of SONOS-type memories, and then deals with the materials' requirements of high-k dielectrics used for SONOS-type memories. In the following section, the microstructures of high-k dielectrics used as tunneling layers, charge trapping layers and blocking layers in SONOS-type memories, and their impacts on the memory behaviors are critically reviewed. The improvement of the memory characteristics by using multilayered structures, including multilayered tunneling layer or multilayered charge trapping layer are also discussed. Finally, this review is concluded with our perspectives towards the future researches on the high-k dielectrics applicable to SONOS-type nonvolatile semiconductor memories.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1998.07g
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• pp.2518-2520
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• 1998

Silicon can be reactive ion etched (RIE) either isotropically or anisotropically. In this paper, a new micromachining technology combining these two etching characteristics is proposed. In the proposed method, the fabrication steps are as follows. First. a polysilicon layer, which is used as the bottom electrode, is deposited on the silicon wafer and patterned. Then the silicon substrate is etched anisotropically to a few micrometer depth that forms a cavity. Then an PECVD oxide layer is deposited to passivate the cavity side walls. The oxide layers at the top and bottom faces are removed while the passivation layers of the side walls are left. Then the substrate is etched again but in an isotropic etch condition to form a round trench with a larger radius than the anisotropic cavity. Then a sacrificial PECVD oxide layer is deposited and patterned. Then a polysilicon structural layer is deposited and patterned. This polysilicon layer forms a pivot structure of a rocker-arm. Finally, oxide sacrificial layers are etched away. This new micromachining technology is quite simpler than conventional method to fabricate joint structures, and the devices that are fabricated using this technology do not require a flexing structure for motion.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.1489-1496
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• 2009

Amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin-film-transistors (TFTs) were modeled successfully. Dependence of TFT characteristics on structure, thickness, and equilibrium electron-density of the active layer was studied. For mono-active-layer TFTs, a thinner active layer had higher field-effect mobility. Threshold voltage showed the smallest absolute value for the 20 nm active-layer. Subthreshold swing showed almost no dependence on active-layer thickness. For the double-active-layer case, better switching performances were obtained for TFTs with bottom active layers with higher equilibrium electron density. TFTs with thinner active layers had higher mobility. Threshold voltage shifted in the minus direction as a function of the increase in the thickness of the layer with higher equilibrium electron-density. Subthreshold swing showed almost no dependence on active-layer structure. These data will be useful in optimizing the structure, the thickness, and the doping ratio of the active layers of oxide-semiconductor TFTs.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.528-532
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• 2002

Anodic $TiO_2$film on Ti substrate was fabricated at 180V in sulfuric acid solutions containing phosphoric acid and hydrogen peroxide. Effects of the anodizing conditions on the morphology of the oxide layers, and chemical states of the component elements of the layers were studied primarily using SEM, XRD, AFM, and XPS. The pores in the oxide layer was not uniform in size, shape, and growth direction particularly near the interface between the substrate and the oxide layer, compared with those of the surface layer. The formation of irregular type of pores seemed to be attributed to spark discharge phenomena which heavily occurred during increasing the anodic voltage. The pore diameter and the cell size increased, and the number of cells per unit area decreased with the increasing time. From the XPS results, it was shown that component elements of the electrolytes, P and S, existed in the chemical states of $PO_4^{-3}$ , $P_2$$O_{5}$, $SO_4^{-2}$ , $SO_3^{-2}$ , P, S, etc., which were penetrated from the electrolytes into the oxide layer during anodization.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.139-141
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• 2015

Contact resistance of interface between the channel layers and various S/D electrodes was investigated by transmission line method. Different electrodes such as Ti/Au, a-IZO, and multilayer of a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO were compared in terms of contact resistance, using the transmission line model. The a-IGZO TFTs with a-IGZO/Ag/a-IGZO of S/D electrodes showed good performance and low contact resistance due to the homo-junction with channel layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.30-30
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• 2008

In this study, electrochemical impedance characteristics of anodic oxide layer formed on titanium binary alloy surface have been investigated. Titanium oxide layers were grown on Ti-$_XTa$ and Ti-$_XNb$(X=10, 20, 30 and 40 wt%) alloy substrates using phosphoric acid electrolytes.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.18.1-18.1
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• 2011

Some applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as field emitters, such as x-ray tubes and microwave amplifiers, require high current emission from a small emitter area. To emit the high current density, CNT emitters should be optimally fabricated in terms of material properties and morphological aspects including high crystallinity, aspect ratio, distribution density, height uniformity, adhesion on a substrate, low outgassing rate during electron emission in vacuum, etc. In particular, adhesion of emitters on the substrate is one of the most important parameters to be secured for high current field emission from CNTs. So, we attempted a novel approach to improve the adhesion of CNT emitters by incorporating metal oxide layers between CNT emitters. In our previous study, CNT emitters were fabricated on a metal mesh by filtrating the aqueous suspensions containing both highly crystalline thin multiwalled CNTs and thick entangled multiwalled CNTs. However, the adhesion of CNT film was not enough to produce a high emission current for an extended period of time even after adopting the metal mesh as a fixing substrate of the CNT film. While a high current was emitted, some part of the film was shown to delaminate. In order to strengthen the CNT networks, cobalt-nickel oxides were incorporated into the film. After coating the oxide layer, the CNT tips seemed to be more strongly adhered on the CNT bush. Without the oxide layer, the field emission voltage-current curve moved fast to a high voltage side as increasing the number of voltage sweeps. With the cobalt-nickel oxide incorporated, however, the curve does not move after the second voltage sweep. Such improvement of emission properties seemed to be attributed to stronger adhesion of the CNT film which was imparted by the cobalt-nickel oxide layer between CNT networks. Observed after field emission for an extended period of time, the CNT film with the oxide layer showed less damage on the surface caused by high current emission.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.449-453
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• 2010

In this paper, the electrical characteristics of Fin-type SONOS(silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon) flash memory device with different trapping layers are analyzed in depth. Two kinds of trapping layers i.e., silicon nitride($Si_3N_4$) and hafnium oxide($HfO_2$) are applied. Compared to the conventional Fin-type SONOS device using the $Si_3N_4$ trapping layer, the Fin-type SOHOS(silicon-oxide-high-k-oxide-silicon) device using the $HfO_2$ trapping layer shows superior program/erase speed. However, the data retention properties in SOHOS device are worse than the SONOS flash memory device. Degraded data retention in the SOHOS device may be attributed to the tunneling leakage current induced by interface trap states, which are supported by the subthreshold slope and low frequency noise characteristics.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2675-2678
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• 2012

Studies on niobium anodization in the mixture of 1 M $H_3PO_4$ and 1 wt % HF at galvanostatic anodization are described here in detail. Interestingly, duplex niobium oxide consisting of thick barrier oxide and correspondingly thick porous oxide was prepared at a constant current density of higher than 0.3 $mAcm^{-2}$, whereas simple porous type oxide was formed at a current density of lower than 0.3 $mAcm^{-2}$. In addition, simple barrier or porous type oxide was obtained by galvanostatic anodization at a single electrolyte of either 1 M $H_3PO_4$ or 1 wt % HF, respectively. The formation mechanism of duplex type structures was ascribed to different forming voltages required for moving anions.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.178-184
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• 2012

A porous nickel (P-Ni) substrate was prepared by selective leaching of zinc from pressed pellets containing powders of Ni & Zn in 4 M NaOH solution. Anodic deposition of manganese oxide onto the porous Ni substrate ($MnO_x$/P-Ni) formed nano-flakes of manganese oxide layers as revealed in SEM studies. Pseudocapacitance of this oxide electrode was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronopotentiometry (CHP) in 2 M NaOH solution. The specific capacitance of the Mn oxide electrode was as high as 1515 F $g^{-1}$, which was ten times higher than Mn oxide deposited on a flat Ni-ribbon. 80% of capacity was retained after 200 charge/discharge cycles. The system showed no loss of activity in dry form over period of days. The impedance studies indicated highly conducting $MnO_x$/P-Ni substance and the obtained specific capacitance from impedance data showed good agreement with the charge/discharge measurements.