• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.40 no.12
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• pp.1202-1207
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• 2003

Using a recently developed Hybric Plasma-Particle Accelerating Impact Deposition (HP-PAID) process, synthesis of nanostructured silicon coatings has been investigated by injecting vapor-phase TEOS (tetraethosysilane, (C$_2$H$\_$5/O)$_4$Si) into an Ar hybrid plasma. The plasma jet with reactants was expanded through nozzle into a deposition chamber, with the pressure dropping from 700 to 10 torr. Ultrafine particles accelerated in the free jet downstream of the nozzle, deposited by an inertial impaction onto a temperature controlled substrate. By using this process, nanostructured amorphous silicon coatings with grain size smaller than 10 nm could be synthesized. These samples were annealed in an Ar and crystallized at 900$^{\circ}C$ for 30 min. TEM analysis showed that the annealed coatings were also composed of nanoparticles smaller than 10 nm, which showed a good consistency that the average grain size of 7 nm was also estimated from a peak shift of 2.39 cm$\^$-1/ and Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) 5.92 cm$\^$-1/ of Raman analysis. The noteworthy is that a strong PL peak at 398 nm was also obtained for this sample, which indicates that the deposited coatings also contained 3∼4 nm nanostructured grains.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.289-289
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• 2013

While there are plenty of studies on synthesizing semiconducting germanium nanowires (Ge NWs) by vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) process, it is difficult to inject dopants into them with uniform dopants distribution due to vapor-solid (VS) deposition. In particular, as precursors and dopants such as germane ($GeH_4$), phosphine ($PH_3$) or diborane ($B_2H_6$) incorporate through sidewall of nanowire, it is hard to obtain the structural and electrical uniformity of Ge NWs. Moreover, the drastic tapered structure of Ge NWs is observed when it is synthesized at high temperature over $400^{\circ}C$ because of excessive VS deposition. In 2006, Emanuel Tutuc et al. demonstrated Ge NW pn junction using p-type shell as depleted layer. However, it could not be prevented from undesirable VS deposition and it still kept the tapered structures of Ge NWs as a result. Herein, we adopt $C_2H_2$ gas in order to passivate Ge NWs with carbon sheath, which makes the entire Ge NWs uniform at even higher temperature over $450^{\circ}C$. We can also synthesize non-tapered and uniformly doped Ge NWs, restricting incorporation of excess germanium on the surface. The Ge NWs with carbon sheath are grown via VLS process on a $Si/SiO_2$ substrate coated 2 nm Au film. Thin Au film is thermally evaporated on a $Si/SiO_2$ substrate. The NW is grown flowing $GeH_4$, HCl, $C_2H_2$ and PH3 for n-type, $B_2H_6$ for p-type at a total pressure of 15 Torr and temperatures of $480{\sim}500^{\circ}C$. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals clear surface of the Ge NWs synthesized at $500^{\circ}C$. Raman spectroscopy peaked at about ~300 $cm^{-1}$ indicates it is comprised of single crystalline germanium in the core of Ge NWs and it is proved to be covered by thin amorphous carbon by two peaks of 1330 $cm^{-1}$ (D-band) and 1590 $cm^{-1}$ (G-band). Furthermore, the electrical performances of Ge NWs doped with boron and phosphorus are measured by field effect transistor (FET) and they shows typical curves of p-type and n-type FET. It is expected to have general potentials for development of logic devices and solar cells using p-type and n-type Ge NWs with carbon sheath.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.154-155
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• 2012

The promise of nano-crystalites (nc) as a technological material, for applications including display backplane, and solar cells, may ultimately depend on tailoring their behavior through doping and crystallinity. Impurities can strongly modify electronic and optical properties of bulk and nc semiconductors. Highly doped dopant also effect structural properties (both grain size, crystal fraction) of nc-Si thin film. As discussed in several literatures, P atoms or radicals have the tendency to reside on the surface of nc. The P-radical segregation on the nano-grain surfaces that called self-purification may reduce the possibility of new nucleation because of the five-coordination of P. In addition, the P doping levels of ${\sim}2{\times}10^{21}\;at/cm^3$ is the solubility limitation of P in Si; the solubility of nc thin film should be smaller. Therefore, the non-activated P tends to segregate on the grain boundaries and the surface of nc. These mechanisms could prevent new nucleation on the existing grain surface. Therefore, most researches shown that highly doped nc-thin film by using conventional PECVD deposition system tended to have low crystallinity, where the formation energy of nucleation should be higher than the nc surface in the intrinsic materials. If the deposition technology that can make highly doped and simultaneously highly crystallized nc at low temperature, it can lead processes of next generation flexible devices. Recently, we are developing a novel CVD technology with a neutral particle beam (NPB) source, named as neutral beam assisted CVD (NBaCVD), which controls the energy of incident neutral particles in the range of 1~300eV in order to enhance the atomic activation and crystalline of thin films at low temperatures. During the formation of the nc-/pm-Si thin films by the NBaCVD with various process conditions, NPB energy directly controlled by the reflector bias and effectively increased crystal fraction (~80%) by uniformly distributed nc grains with 3~10 nm size. In the case of phosphorous doped Si thin films, the doping efficiency also increased as increasing the reflector bias (i.e. increasing NPB energy). At 330V of reflector bias, activation energy of the doped nc-Si thin film reduced as low as 0.001 eV. This means dopants are fully occupied as substitutional site, even though the Si thin film has nano-sized grain structure. And activated dopant concentration is recorded as high as up to 1020 #/$cm^3$ at very low process temperature (＜ $80^{\circ}C$) process without any post annealing. Theoretical solubility for the higher dopant concentration in Si thin film for order of 1020 #/$cm^3$ can be done only high temperature process or post annealing over $650^{\circ}C$. In general, as decreasing the grain size, the dopant binding energy increases as ratio of 1 of diameter of grain and the dopant hardly be activated. The highly doped nc-Si thin film by low-temperature NBaCVD process had smaller average grain size under 10 nm (measured by GIWAXS, GISAXS and TEM analysis), but achieved very higher activation of phosphorous dopant; NB energy sufficiently transports its energy to doping and crystallization even though without supplying additional thermal energy. TEM image shows that incubation layer does not formed between nc-Si film and SiO2 under later and highly crystallized nc-Si film is constructed with uniformly distributed nano-grains in polymorphous tissues. The nucleation should be start at the first layer on the SiO2 later, but it hardly growth to be cone-shaped micro-size grains. The nc-grain evenly embedded pm-Si thin film can be formatted by competition of the nucleation and the crystal growing, which depend on the NPB energies. In the evaluation of the light soaking degradation of photoconductivity, while conventional intrinsic and n-type doped a-Si thin films appeared typical degradation of photoconductivity, all of the nc-Si thin films processed by the NBaCVD show only a few % of degradation of it. From FTIR and RAMAN spectra, the energetic hydrogen NB atoms passivate nano-grain boundaries during the NBaCVD process because of the high diffusivity and chemical potential of hydrogen atoms.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.107-108
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• 2008

The spectacular development of AMLCDs, been made possible by a-Si:H technology, still faces two major drawbacks due to the intrinsic structure of a-Si:H, namely a low mobility and most important a shift of the transfer characteristics of the TFTs when submitted to bias stress. This has lead to strong research in the crystallization of a-Si:H films by laser and furnace annealing to produce polycrystalline silicon TFTs. While these devices show improved mobility and stability, they suffer from uniformity over large areas and increased cost. In the last decade we have focused on microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c$-Si:H) for bottom gate TFTs, which can hopefully meet all the requirements for mass production of large area AMOLED displays [1,2]. In this presentation we will focus on the transfer of a deposition process based on the use of $SiF_4$-Ar-$H_2$ mixtures from a small area research laboratory reactor into an industrial gen 1 AKT reactor. We will first discuss on the optimization of the process conditions leading to fully crystallized films without any amorphous incubation layer, suitable for bottom gate TFTS, as well as on the use of plasma diagnostics to increase the deposition rate up to 0.5 nm/s [3]. The use of silicon nanocrystals appears as an elegant way to circumvent the opposite requirements of a high deposition rate and a fully crystallized interface [4]. The optimized process conditions are transferred to large area substrates in an industrial environment, on which some process adjustment was required to reproduce the material properties achieved in the laboratory scale reactor. For optimized process conditions, the homogeneity of the optical and electronic properties of the ${\mu}c$-Si:H films deposited on $300{\times}400\;mm$ substrates was checked by a set of complementary techniques. Spectroscopic ellipsometry, Raman spectroscopy, dark conductivity, time resolved microwave conductivity and hydrogen evolution measurements allowed demonstrating an excellent homogeneity in the structure and transport properties of the films. On the basis of these results, optimized process conditions were applied to TFTs, for which both bottom gate and top gate structures were studied aiming to achieve characteristics suitable for driving AMOLED displays. Results on the homogeneity of the TFT characteristics over the large area substrates and stability will be presented, as well as their application as a backplane for an AMOLED display.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.348-353
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• 1997

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon(a-C:H) films were deposited on p-type Si(100) by DC saddle-field plasma enhanced CVD to investigate the effect of substrate bias on optical properties and structural changes. They were deposited using pure methane gas at a wide range of substrate bias at room temperature and 90 mtorr. The substrate bias voltage ($V_s$) was employed from $V_s=0 V$ to $V_s=400 V$. The information of optical properties was investigated by photoluminescence and transmitance. Chemical bondings of a-C:H have been explored from FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy. The thickness and relative hydrogen content of the films were measured by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and elastic recoil detection (ERD) technigue. The growth rate of a-C:H film was decreased with the increase of $V_s$, but the hydrogen content of the film was increased with the increase of $V_s$. The a-C:H films deposited at the lowest $V_s$ contain the smallest amount of hydrogen with most of C-H bonds in the of $CH_2$ configuration, whereas the films produced at higher $V_s$ reveal dominant the $CH_3$ bonding structure. The emission of white photoluminescence from the films were observed even with naked eyes at room temperature and the PL intensity of the film has the maximum value at $V_s$=200 V. With $V_s$ lower than 200 V, the PL intensity of the film increased with V, but for V, higher than 200 V, the PL intensity decreased with the increase of $V_s$. The peak energy of the PL spectra slightly shifted to the higher energy with the increase of $V_s$. The optical bandgap of the film, determined by optical transmittance, was increased from 1.5 eV at $V_s$=0V to 2.3 eV at $V_s$=400 V. But there were no obvious relations between the PL peak and the optical gap which were measured by Tauc process.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.1095-1099
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• 2008

In this study, we investigated that hydrate formation and phase behavior of the $THF+H_2$ binary clathrate hydrates. In order to confirm the binary clathrate hydrate formation we employed the Raman and NMR spectroscopies that are known to be quite powerful tools, particularly for examining the cage occupancy pattern of guest molecules. In addition, we traced the P-T profiles from clathrate hydrate formation and dissociation process, which made it possible for the resulting phase equilibrium boundary to be clearly established. In the binary clathrate hydrate matrix we further identified that the relatively large THF molecules can only occupy the large $5^{12}6^4$ cavities, while the small $H_2$ molecules are entrapped in the empty $5^{12}$ cavities in structure-II, making the hydrate to be stable above 273 K even at relatively low pressure condition. Considering that pure $H_2$ hydrate can be produced at the extreme pressures higher that 1,000 bar, we can conclude that the water-soluble second guest inclusion induces $H_2$ storage and transportation to be readily achievable under much milder conditions.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 2013

$Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ is a candidate material for the top cell of $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ tandem cells. This phase is often found at the surface of the $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ film during $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ cell fabrication, and plays a positive role in $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ cell performance. However, the exact properties of the $Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ film have not been extensively studied yet. In this work, $Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ films were fabricated on Mo-coated soda-lime glass substrates by a three-stage co-evaporation process. The Cu content in the film was controlled by varying the deposition time of each stage. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy analyses showed that, even though the stoichiometric Cu/(In+Ga) ratio is 0.25, $Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ is easily formed in a wide range of Cu content as long as the Cu/(In+Ga) ratio is held below 0.5. The optical band gap of $Cu_{0.3}(In_{0.65}Ga_{0.35})_3Se_5$ composition was found to be 1.35eV. As the Cu/(In+Ga) ratio was decreased further below 0.5, the grain size became smaller and the band gap increased. Unlike the $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ solar cell, an external supply of Na with $Na_2S$ deposition further increased the cell efficiency of the $Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ solar cell, indicating that more Na is necessary, in addition to the Na supply from the soda lime glass, to suppress deep level defects in the $Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ film. The cell efficiency of $CdS/Cu(In,Ga)_3Se_5$ was improved from 8.8 to 11.2% by incorporating Na with $Na_2S$ deposition on the CIGS film. The fill factor was significantly improved by the Na incorporation, due to a decrease of deep-level defects.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.30-34
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• 2016

In this paper, we report that selective etching on N-polar face by EC (electro-chemical)-etching effect on the reduction of bowing and strain of FS (free-standing)-GaN substrates. We applied the EC-etching to concave and convex type of FS-GaN substrates. After the EC-etching for FS-GaN, nano porous structure was formed on N-polar face of concave and convex type of FS-GaN. Consequently, the bowing in the convex type of FS-GaN substrate was decreased but the bowing in the concave type of FS-GaN substrate was increased. Furthermore, the FWHM (full width at half maximum) of (1 0 2) reflection for the convex type of FS-GaN was significantly decreased from 601 to 259 arcsec. In the case, we confirmed that the EC-etching method was very effective to reduce the bowing in the convex type of FS-GaN and the compressive stress in N-polar face of convex type of FS-GaN was fully released by Raman measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.266-274
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• 2014

To extend the understanding of the pyrolysis mechanism of wood, we have investigated wood dust charcoal and condensate of volatile organic compounds (VOC) obtained during the pyrolysis of red pine (Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc.) at $180{\sim}450^{\circ}C$ using elemental analysis, IR and GC/Mass. The effect of activation process on the charcoal structure also has been studied by comparing elemental analysis and IR data of charcoal carbonated at $600^{\circ}C$ and charcoals activated at $750^{\circ}C$. The results show that pyrolysis of wood has mainly started near at $240^{\circ}C$ and its chemical components did not changed much up to $270^{\circ}C$. However, the element contents and IR spectra drastically changed at $300^{\circ}C$. The fact that IR peaks related to the aromatic ring of lignin are observed in the charcoal pyrolized at $450^{\circ}C$ indicates that a small part of lignin still remains at this temperature. The chemical structure of the activated charcoal seems almost unaffected by the activation time.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.318-325
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• 2022

In this study, composites containing undoped and barium-doped Bi₂WO₆:Ba²⁺were investigated for their shielding against diagnostic X-ray. At first, Bi₂WO₆ and barium-doped Bi₂WO₆ were synthesized with different weight percentages of barium oxide through a hydrothermal process. The as-synthesized nanostructures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and Raman spectroscopy (RS). After that, some shields were generated with undoped and barium-doped Bi₂WO₆:Ba²⁺ nanostructure particles incorporated into polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polymer with different thicknesses and 15% weight of the nanostructure. Finally, the prepared samples were exposed to an X-ray tube at 40, 80, and 120 kV voltages, 10 mAs and, 44.5 cm SID (i.e. the distance from the X-ray beam source to the specimen). Linear and mass attenuation coefficients were also calculated for different samples. The results indicated that, among the samples, the one with 7.5 mmol barium-doped Bi₂WO₆ had the most attenuation at the voltage of 40kV, and the attenuation coefficients would increase with an increase in the amount of barium. The samples with 15 and 17.5 mmol barium-doped Bi₂WO₆ had higher attenuation than the others at 80 and 120 kV. Moreover, the half-value layer (HVL), tenth-value layer (TVL) and 0.25 mm lead equivalent thickness were calculated for all the samples. The lowest HVL value was for the sample with 7.5 mmol barium-doped Bi₂WO₆. As the result clearly show, an increment in the barium-doping content leads to a decrease in both HVL and TVL. In every three voltages, 0.25 mm lead equivalent thickness of the barium-doped composites (7.5 mmol and 15 mmol) had less than the other composites. The lowest value of 0.25 mm lead equivalent thickness was 7.5 barium-doped in 40 kV voltage and 15 mmol barium-doped in 80 kV and 120 kV voltages. These results were obtained only for 15% weight of the nanostructure.