• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.273
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• pp.94-98
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• 2005

$RuO_2$ is widely studied as a lower electrode material for high dielectric capacitors in DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memories) and FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memories). In this study, the effects of hydrogen, oxygen, and argon Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) plasma pretreatments on deposited by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) $RuO_2$ nucleation was investigated using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) analyses. Argon ECR plasma pretreatment was found to offer the highest $RuO_2$ nucleation density among these three pretreatments. The mechanism through which $RuO_2$ nucleation is enhanced by ECR plasma pretreatment may be that the argon or the hydrogen ECR plasma removes nitrogen and oxygen atoms at the TiN film surface so that the underlying TiN film surface is changed to Ti-rich TiN.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.245-250
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• 2005

ZnO was deposited on sapphire single crystal substrate by an ultrasonic pyrolysis of Zinc Acetate Dehydrate (ZAH) with carrying Ar gas. Through Thermogravimetry-Differential Scanning Calorimetry(TG-DSC), zinc acetate dihydrate was identified to be dissolved into ZnO above $380^{\circ}C$. ZnO deposited at $380-700^{\circ}C$ showed polycrystalline structures with ZnO (101) and ZnO (002) diffraction peaks like bulk ZnO in XRD, and from which c-axis strain ${\Sigma}Z=0.2\%$ and compressive biaxial stress$\sigma=-0.907\;GPa$ was obtained for the ZnO deposited $400^{\circ}C$. Scanning electron microscope revealed that microstructures of the ZnO were dependent on the deposition temperature. ZnO grown below temperature $600^{\circ}C$ were aggregate consisting of zinc acetate and ZnO particles shaped with nanoblades. On the other hand the grain of the ZnO deposited at $700^{\circ}C$ showed a distorted hexagonal shape and was composed of many ultrafine ZnO powers of 10-25 nm in size. The formation of these ulrafine nm scale ZnO powers was explained by the model of random nucleation mechanism. The optical property of the ZnO was analyzed by the photoluminescence (PL) measurement.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.83-91
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• 1996

We present a model that rotating primordial blackholes(PBHs) produced at the end of inflation generate the random, non-oriented primordial magnetic field. PBHs are copiously produced as the Universe completes the cosmic phase transition via bubble nucleation and tunneling processes in the extended inflation hypothesis. The PBHs produced acquire angular momentum through the mutual tidal gravitational interaction. For PBHs of mass less than 1013g, one can show that the evaporation (photon) luminosity of PBHs exceeds the Eddington limit. Thus throughout the lifetime of the rotating PBH, radiation flow from the central blackhole along the Kerr-geodesic exerts torque to ambient plasma. In the process similar to the Bierman's battery mechanism electron current reaching up to the horizon scale is induced. For PBHs of Grand Unified Theories extended inflation with the symmetry breaking temperature of $T_{GUT}\;\~\;10^{10}$ GeV, which evaporate near decoupling, we find that they generate random, non-oriented magnetic fields of $\~10^{-11}G$ on the last-scattering surface on (the present comoving) scales of $\~O(10)Mpc$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.575-580
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• 2007

A 16 Mb 1T1C FeRAM device was integrated with BLT capacitors. But a lot of cells were failed randomly during the measuring the bit-line signal distribution of each cell. The reason was revealed that the grain size and orientation of the BLT thin film were severely non-uniform. And the grain size and orientation were severely affected by the process conditions of post heat treatment, especially nucleation step. The optimized annealing temperature at the nucleation step was $560^{\circ}C$. The microstructure of the BLT thin film was also varied by the annealing time at the step. The longer process time showed the finer grain size. Therefore, the uniformity of the grain size and orientation could be improved by changing the process conditions of the nucleation step. The FeRAM device without random bit-fail cell was successfully fabricated with the optimized BLT capacitor and the sensing margin in bit-line signal distribution of it was about 340 mV.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.26-35
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• 1997

The substrate effects on solid-phase crystallization of amorphous silicon (a-Si) films deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) using $Si_2H_6$ gas have been extensively investigated. The a-Si films were prepared on various substrates, such as thermally oxidized Si wafer ($SiO_2$/Si), quartz and LPCVD-oxide, and annealed at 600$^{\circ}C$ in an $N_2$ ambient for crystallization. The crystallization behavior was found to be strongly dependent on the substrate even though all the silicon films were deposited in amorphous phase. It was first observed that crystallization in a-Si films deposited on the $SiO_2$/Si starts from the interface between the a-Si and the substrate, so called interface-interface-induced crystallization, while random nucleation process dominates on the other substrates. The different kinetics and mechanism of solid-phase crystallization is attributed to the structural disorderness of a-Si films, which is strongly affected by the surface roughness of the substrates.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.412-418
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• 2007

The atomic scale details of the melting of solid argon were monitored with the aid of molecular dynamics simulations. The potential energy distribution is substantially disturbed by an increase in the interatomic distance and the random of set distance from the lattice points, with increasing temperature. The potential energy barriers between the lattice points decrease in magnitude with the temperature. Eventually, at the melting point, these barriers can be overcome by atoms that are excited with the entropy gain acquired when the atoms obtain rotational freedom in their atomic motion, and the rotational freedom leads to the collapse of the crystal structure. Furthermore, it was found that the surface of crystals plays an important role in the melting process: the surface eliminates the barrier for the nucleation of the liquid phase and facilitates the melting process. Moreover, the atomic structure of the surface varies with increasing temperature, first via surface roughening and then, before the bulk melts, via surface melting.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.248-251
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• 2003

The large size grain of poly-Si film is obtained above the upper limit of excimer laser energy at which the random nucleation occurs. We simulate the time dependent temperature profile of ${\alpha}-Si/SiO_2/Si$ substrate structure according to the excimer laser energy with $ANSYS^{\circledR}$ simulator. As the thickness is increased, the laser energy for the melting of ${\alpha}-Si$ film is increased.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.75-78
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• 2004

Magnetic transmission soft X-ray microscopy has been used to study element-specifically the magnetization reversal behavior of ${(Co_{84}Cr_{16})}_{87}Pt_{l3}$ alloy thin films with a lateral resolution of 35 nm. Our results indicate that the magnetization switching is carried out by a random nucleation process that can be attributed to the reversal of individual grains. We found evidence of a large distribution of the switching fields at the nanogranular length scale, which has to be considered seriously for applications of CoCrPt systems as magnetic high density storage materials.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.4 no.S1
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• pp.97-101
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• 1995

We report the results of a real-time synchrotron x-ray scattering study of the growth of TiN thin films on Si(001) substrates by RF sputtering. Our experiemnts show that the morphology of the TiN films strongly depends on growth conditions. After the nucleation and growth takes place with random crystallographic orientation at the very early stage, the films grow with a preferred orientation. Such preferred orientation was found to depend on both the sputtering power and the carrier gases used in the sputtering. Generally, the final morphology assumes either(111) or (002) crystallographic orientation. Using Ar sputtering, a cross-over effect from(002) to (111) was observed at intermediate time. The nature of the observed morphological changes is discussed.