• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-4
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• 2019

Reactive sputtering is widely used because of its high deposition rate and high step coverage. The deposition layer is often affected by target poisoning because the target conditions are changed, as well, by reactive gases during the initial stage of sputtering process. The reactive gas affects the deposition rate and process stability (target poisoning), and it also leads unintended oxide interlayer formation. Although the target poisoning mechanism has been well known, little attention has been paid on understanding the interlayer formation during the reactive sputtering. In this research, we studied the interlayer formation during the reactive sputtering. A DC magnetron sputtering process is carried out to deposit an aluminum oxide film on a silicon wafer. From the real-time process monitoring and material analysis, the target poisoning phenomena changes the reactive gas balance at the initial stage, and affects the interlayer formation during the reactive sputtering process.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.12 no.S1
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• pp.83-87
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• 2003

Zirconium oxide films have been synthesized by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering deposition on n-Si(001) substrate with metal zirconium target at variant $O_2$ partial pressures. The influences of $O_2$ partial pressures of the morphology, deposition rate, microstructure, and the dielectric constant of $ZrO_2$ have been discussed. The results show that deposition rate of $ZrO_2$ films decreases, the roughness, and the thickness of the native $SiO_2$ interlayer increases with the increase of $O_2$ partial pressure. $ZrO_2$ films synthesized at low $O_2$ partial pressure are amorphous and monoclinic polycrystalline in nanometer scale at low $O_2$ partial pressure. The relative dielectrics of $ZrO_2$ films are in the range of 12 to 25.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.218-218
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• 2011

The CIGS Solar Cells have the highest conversion efficiency in the film-type solar cells. They consist of p-type CuInSe2 film and n-type ZnO film. The CdS films are used as buffer layer in the CIGS solar cells since remarkable difference in the lattice constant and energy band gap of two films. The CdS films are toxic and make harmful circumstances. The CdS films deposition process need wet process. In this works, we design and make the hitter and lamp reflection part in the sputtering system for the ZnS films deposition as buffer layer, not using wet process. Film thickness, SEM, and AFM are measured for the uniformity valuation of the ZnS films. We conclude the optimum deposition temperature for the films uniformity less than 1.6%. The ZnS films deposited by the sputtering system are more dense and uniform than the CdS films deposited by the Chemical Bath Deposition Method(CBD) for the CIGS Solar Cells.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.110-113
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• 2006

A high rate deposition sputtering process of magnesium oxide thin film in oxide mode has been developed using a 20 kW unipolar pulsed power supply. The power supply was operated at a maximum constant voltage of 500 V and a constant current of 40 A. The pulse repetition rate and the duty were changed in the ranges of $10\sim50$ kHz and $10\sim60%$, respectively. The deposition rate increased with rising incident power to the target. Maximum incident power to the magnesium target was obtained by the control of frequency, duty and current. The deposition rate of a moving state was 9 nm m/min at the average power of 1.5 kW. This result shows higher deposition rate than any other previous work involving reactive sputtering in oxide mode. The thickness uniformities over the entire substrate area of $982mm{\times}563mm$ were observed at the processing pressure of $2.8\sim9.5$ mTorr. The thickness distribution was improved at lower pressure. This technique is proposed for application to a high through-put sputtering system for plasma display panels.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.53-60
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• 2012

Modulated Pulse Power (MPP) magnetron sputtering is a new high-power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HPPMS) technology which overcomes the low deposition rate problem by modulating the pulse voltage shape, amplitude, and the duration. Highly ionized magnetron sputtering can be performed without arcing because it can be controlled as multiple steps of micro pulses within one overall pulse period in the range of 500-3,000 ${\mu}s$. In this study, the various waveforms of discharge voltage and current for micro pulse sets of MPP were investigated to find the possibility of controlling the strongly ionized plasma mode. Enhanced ionization of the sputtered metal atoms was obtained by OES. Large grained columnar structure can be grown by the strongly ionized plasma mode in the AZO deposition using MPP. In the most highly ionized deposition condition, the preferred orientation of (002) plane decreased, and the resistivity, therefore, increased by the plasma damage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.181.2-181.2
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• 2015

Sputtering is one of the most popular physical deposition methods due to their versatility and reproducibility. Synthesis of Cr thin films by DC magnetron sputtering using glancing angle deposition (GLAD) has been reported. Chromium thin films have been prepared at two different working pressure($2.0{\times}10-2$, 30, $3.3{\times}10-3torr$) on Si-wafer substrate using magnetron sputtering with glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique. The thickness of Cr thin films on the substrate was adjusted about 1 mm. The electrical property was measured by four-point probe method. For the measurement of density in the films, an X-ray reflectivity (XRR) was carried out. The sheet resistance and column angle increased with the increase of glancing angle. However, nanohardness and density of Cr thin films decreased as the glancing angle increased. The measured density for the Cr thin films decreased from 6.1 to 3.8 g/cc as the glancing angle increased from $0^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$ degree. The low density of Cr thin films is resulted from the isolated columnar structure of samples. The evolution of the isolated columnar structure was enhanced at the conditions of low sputter pressure and high glancing angle. This GLAD technique can be potentially applied to the synthesis of thin films requiring porous and uniform coating such as thin film catalysts or gas sensors.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2003

$TiO_2$ thin films were deposited by DC reactive magnetron sputtering with variations in sputtering parameter such as Ar and $O_2$ flow rate, DC power, substrate temperature and magnetic field. Deposition rate, crystal structure, chemical bond of $TiO_2$ films on the deposition conditions were investigated by Alpha-step, X-ray Diffractometer(XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy(XPS). When the DC power was applied at 500watt, deposition rate of $TiO_2$ film was about 480A/min. $TiO_2$ films coated under the deposition condition of 15sccm Ar and 7~10sccm $O_2$ flow rate was only observed anatase phase. With increasing substrate temperature from RT to $300^{\circ}C$, crystal orientation of $TiO_2$ films variously became.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.162-166
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• 2015

Linear ion beams have been introduced for the ion beam treatments of flexible substrates in roll-to-roll web coating systems. Anode layer linear ion sources (300 mm width) were used to make the linear ion beams. Oxygen ion beams having an ion energy from 200 eV to 800 eV used for the adhesion improvement of Cu thin films on PET substrates. The Cu thin films deposited by a conventional magnetron sputtering on the oxygen ion beam treated PET substrates showed Class 5 adhesion defined by ASTM D3359-97 (tape test). Argon ion beams with 1~3 keV used for the ion beam sputtering deposition process, which aims to control the initial layer before the magnetron sputtering deposition. When the discharge power of the linear ion source is 1.2 kW, static deposition rate of Cu and Ni were 7.4 and $3.5{\AA}/sec$, respectively.

• 한국초전도학회:학술대회논문집
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• v.9
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• pp.67-70
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• 1999

We have fabricated YBa$_2Cu_3O_{7-x}$ thin films by cylindrical hollow cathode sputtering. For 2 inch diameter of MgO (100) substrate, we obtained the zero resistance temperature in the range from 83 K to 86 K and thickness uniformity better than 5 % over the whole area. Also, the average deposition rate was 100nm/h which is higher than 10 times compare to conventional off-axis sputtering method. These results indicate that cylindrical hollow cathode sputtering seems to have unique capabilities for high rate and homogeneous deposition of large area thin film.