• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.531-536
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• 2005

Inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching of CoTb and CoZrNb magnetic materials with the photoresist mask was performed using $Cl_2/Ar$ and $C_2F_6/Ar$ gas mixtures and characterized in terms of etch rate and etch profile. As the concentrations of $Cl_2$ and $C_2F_6$ gases increased, the etch rates of magnetic films decreased and the etch slopes became slanted. The $Cl_2/Ar$ gas was more effective in obtaining fast etch rate and steep sidewall slope than the $C_2F_6/Ar$ gas. As the coil rf power and dc bias increased, fast etch rate and steep etch slope were obtained but the redeposition on the sidewall was observed. This is due to the increase of ion and radical densities in plasma with increasing the coil rf power and the increase of incident ion energy to the substrate with increasing the dc bias voltage. By applying high density reactive ion etching to magnetic tunnel junction stack containing various magnetic films and metal oxide, steep etch slope and clean etch profile without redeposition were obtained.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.181-189
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• 2012

We developed a new high-yield synthesis method of free-standing germanium nanocrystals (Ge NCs) by means of the gas-phase photolysis of tetramethyl germanium in a closed reactor using an Nd-YAG pulsed laser. Size control (5-100 nm) can be simply achieved using a quenching gas. The $Ge_{1-x}Si_x$ NCs were synthesized by the photolysis of a tetramethyl silicon gas mixture and their composition was controlled by the partial pressure of precursors. The as-grown NCs are sheathed with thin (1-2 nm) carbon layers, and well dispersed to form a stable colloidal solution. Both Ge NC and Ge-RGO hybrids exhibit excellent cycling performance and high capacity of the lithium ion battery (800 and 1100 mAh/g after 50 cycles, respectively) as promising anode materials for the development of high-performance lithium batteries. This novel synthesis method of Ge NCs is expected to contribute to expand their applications in high-performance energy conversion systems.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.460-466
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• 2002

Titanium oxide film was deposited on the commercially pure titanium (cp-Ti) by thermal oxidation method for its medical application. The cp-Ti disks were cleaned and then heat-treated at the temperatures of 500, 550, 600, 650, and 700${\circ}C$, respectively, for 10 min in air or Ar. To test the ability of calcium phosphate formation, the specimens were immersed in the Eagle's minimum essential medium solution at 36.5${\circ}C$ for 15 days. The morphology and chemical composition of the surfaces before and after soaking were analyzed by using FE-SEM and EDS. The in-vitro formation of carbonated calcium phosphate on the thin films containing nano-sized $TiO_2$ crystals was identified.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.363-363
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• 2008

The development of dry etching process for sapphire wafer with plasma has been key issues for the opto-electric devices. The challenges are increasing control and obtaining low plasma induced-damage because an unwanted scattering of radiation is caused by the spatial disorder of pattern and variation of surface roughness. The plasma-induced damages during plasma etching process can be classified as impurity contamination of residual etch products or bonding disruption in lattice due to charged particle bombardment. Therefor, fine pattern technology with low damaged etching process and high etch rate are urgently needed. Until now, there are a lot of reports on the etching of sapphire wafer with using $Cl_2$/Ar, $BCl_3$/Ar, HBr/Ar and so on [1]. However, the etch behavior of sapphire wafer have investigated with variation of only one parameter while other parameters are fixed. In this study, we investigated the effect of pressure and other parameters on the etch rate and the selectivity. We selected $BCl_3$ as an etch ant because $BCl_3$ plasmas are widely used in etching process of oxide materials. In plasma, the $BCl_3$ molecule can be dissociated into B radical, $B^+$ ion, Cl radical and $Cl^+$ ion. However, the $BCl_3$ molecule can be dissociated into B radical or $B^+$ ion easier than Cl radical or $Cl^+$ ion. First, we evaluated the etch behaviors of sapphire wafer in $BCl_3$/additive gases (Ar, $N_2,Cl_2$) gases. The behavior of etch rate of sapphire substrate was monitored as a function of additive gas ratio to $BCl_3$ based plasma, total flow rate, r.f. power, d.c. bias under different pressures of 5 mTorr, 10 mTorr, 20 mTorr and 30 mTorr. The etch rates of sapphire wafer, $SiO_2$ and PR were measured with using alpha step surface profiler. In order to understand the changes of radicals, volume density of Cl, B radical and BCl molecule were investigated with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The chemical states of $Al_2O_3$ thin films were studied with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and depth profile anlysis of auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The enhancement of sapphire substrate can be explained by the reactive ion etching mechanism with the competition of the formation of volatile $AlCl_3$, $Al_2Cl_6$ or $BOCl_3$ and the sputter effect by energetic ions.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.63-67
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• 2010

The organic solar cells with Glass/ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM/Al structure were fabricated using regioregular poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) polymer:(6,6)- phenyl $C_{61}$-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) fullerene polymer as the bulk hetero-junction layer. The P3HT and PCBM as the electron donor and acceptor materials were spin casted on the indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates. The optimum mixing concentration ratio of photovoltaic layer was found to be P3HT:PCBM = 4:4 in wt%, indicating that the short circuit current density ($J_{SC}$), open circuit voltage ($V_{OC}$), fill factor (FF) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) values were about 4.7 $mA/cm^2$, 0.48 V, 43.1% and 0.97%, respectively. To investigate the effects of the post annealing treatment, as prepared organic solar cells were post annealed at the treatment time range from 5min to 20min at $150^{\circ}C$. $J_{SC}$ and $V_{OC}$ increased with increasing the post annealing time from 5min to 15min, which may be originated from the improvement of the light absorption coefficient of P3HT and improved ohmic contact between photo voltaic layer and Al electrode. The maximum $J_{SC},\;V_{OC}$, FF and PCE values of organic solar cell, which was post annealed for 15min at $150^{\circ}C$, were found to be about 7.8 $mA/cm^2$, 0.55 V, 47% and 2.0%, respectively.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.88-99
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• 1992

For the development of semiconducting photoelectrode to be more stable and efficient in the process of photoelectrolysis of the water, pure titanium rods were oxidized by anodic oxidation, furance oxidation and flame oxidation and used as electrodes. The Indium islands were formed by electrodeposition of "In" thin film on $TiO_2$ and Ti by electrodeposition. Also $A1_2O_3$ and NiO islands were coated on Ti by the electron-beam evaporation technique. The maximum photoelectrochemical conversion efficiency(${\eta}$) was 0.98% for flame oxidized electrode($1200^{\circ}C$ for 2min in air). Anodically oxidized electrodes have photoelectrochemical conversion efficiency of 0.14%. Furnace oxidized electrode($800^{\circ}C$ for 10min in air) has 0.57% of photoelectrochemical efficiency and shows a band-gap energy of about 2.9eV. The $In_2O_3$ coated $TiO_2$ exhibits 0.8% of photoelectrochemical efficiency but much higher value of ${\eta}$ was obtained with the Increase of applied blas voltage. However, $Al_2O_3$ or NiO coated $TiO_2$ shows much low value of ${\eta}$. The efficiency was dependent on the presence of the metallic interstitial compound $TiO_{0+x}$(x<0.33) at the metal-semiconductor interface and the thickness of the suboxide layer and the external rutile scale.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.362-362
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• 2014

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be regarded as a special variation of the chemical vapor deposition method for reducing film thickness. ALD is based on sequential self-limiting reactions from the gas phase to produce thin films and over-layers in the nanometer scale with perfect conformality and process controllability. These characteristics make ALD an important film deposition technique for nanoelectronics. Tantalum pentoxide ($Ta_2O_5$) has a number of applications in optics and electronics due to its superior properties, such as thermal and chemical stability, high refractive index (>2.0), low absorption in near-UV to IR regions, and high-k. In particular, the dielectric constant of amorphous $Ta_2O_5$ is typically close to 25. Accordingly, $Ta_2O_5$ has been extensively studied in various electronics such as metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (FET), organic FET, dynamic random access memories (RAM), resistance RAM, etc. In this experiment, the variations of chemical and interfacial state during the growth of $Ta_2O_5$ films on the Si substrate by ALD was investigated using in-situ synchrotron radiation photoemission spectroscopy. A newly synthesized liquid precursor $Ta(N^tBu)(dmamp)_2$ Me was used as the metal precursor, with Ar as a purging gas and $H_2O$ as the oxidant source. The core-level spectra of Si 2p, Ta 4f, and O 1s revealed that Ta suboxide and Si dioxide were formed at the initial stages of $Ta_2O_5$ growth. However, the Ta suboxide states almost disappeared as the ALD cycles progressed. Consequently, the $Ta^{5+}$ state, which corresponds with the stoichiometric $Ta_2O_5$, only appeared after 4.0 cycles. Additionally, tantalum silicide was not detected at the interfacial states between $Ta_2O_5$ and Si. The measured valence band offset value between $Ta_2O_5$ and the Si substrate was 3.08 eV after 2.5 cycles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.92-92
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• 2014

Recently, many state-of-art spectroscopy techniques are used to unravel the mysteries of condensed matters. And numerous heterostructures have provided a new avenue to search for new emergent phenomena. Especially, near the interface, various forms of symmetry-breaking can appear, which induces many novel phenomena. Although these intriguing phenomena can be emerged at the interface, by using conventional measurement techniques, the experimental investigations have been limited due to the buried nature of interface. One of the ways to overcome this limitation is in situ investigation of the layer-by-layer evolution of the electronic structure with increasing of the thickness. Namely, with very thin layer, we can measure the electronic structure strongly affected by the interface effect, but with thick layer, the bulk property becomes strong. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is powerful tool to directly obtain electronic structure, and it is very surface sensitive. Thus, the layer-by-layer evolution of the electronic structure in oxide heterostructure can be investigated by using in situ ARPES. LaNiO3 (LNO) heterostructures have recently attracted much attention due to theoretical predictions for many intriguing quantum phenomena. The theories suggest that, by tuning external parameters such as misfit strain and dimensionality in LNO heterostructure, the latent orders, which is absent in bulk, including charge disproportionation, spin-density-wave order and Mott insulator, could be emerged in LNO heterostructure. Here, we performed in situ ARPES studies on LNO films with varying the misfit strain and thickness. (1) By using LaAlO3 (-1.3%), NdGaO3 (+0.3%), and SrTiO3 (+1.7%) substrates, we could obtain LNO films under compressive strain, nearly strain-free, and tensile strain, respectively. As strain state changes from compressive to tensile, the Ni eg bands are rearranged and cross the Fermi level, which induces a change of Fermi surface (FS) topology. Additionally, two different FS superstructures are observed depending on strain states, which are attributed to signatures of latent charge and spin orderings in LNO films. (2) We also deposited LNO ultrathin films under tensile strain with thickness between 1 and 10 unit-cells. We found that the Fermi surface nesting effect becomes strong in two-dimensions and significantly enhances spin-density-wave order. The further details are discussed more in presentation. This work was collaborated with Hyang Keun Yoo, Seung Ill Hyun, Eli Rotenberg, Ji Hoon Shim, Young Jun Chang and Hyeong-Do Kim.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.240-245
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• 2013

Electrochemical surface treatment is commonly used to form a thin, rough, and porous oxidation layer on the surface of titanium. The purpose of this study was to investigate the formation of nanotubular titanium oxide arrays during short anodization processing. The specimen used in this study was 99.9% pure cp-Ti (ASTM Grade II) in the form of a disc with diameter of 15 mm and a thickness of 1 mm. A DC power supplier was used with the anodizing apparatus, and the titanium specimen and the platinum plate ($3mm{\times}4mm{\times}0.1mm$) were connected to an anode and cathode, respectively. The progressive formation of $TiO_2$ nanotubes was observed with FE-SEM (Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy). Highly ordered $TiO_2$ nanotubes were formed at a potential of 20 V in a solution of 1M $H_3PO_4$ + 1.5 wt.% HF for 10 minutes, corresponding with steady state processing. The diameters and the closed ends of $TiO_2$ nanotubes measured at a value of 50 cumulative percent were 100 nm and 120 nm, respectively. The $TiO_2$ nanotubes had lengths of 500 nm. As the anodization processing reached 10 minutes, the frequency distribution for the diameters and the closed ends of the $TiO_2$ nanotubes was gradually reduced. Short anodization processing for $TiO_2$ nanotubes of within 10 minutes was established.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.173-181
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• 1992

Tantalum pentoxide($Ta_{2}O_{5}$) thin films on p-type (100) silicon wafer were fabricated by RF reactive sputtering. Physical properties and structure of the specimens were examined by XRD and AES. From the C-V analysis, the dielectric constant of $Ta_{2}O_{5}$ films was in the range of 10-12 in the reactive gas atmosphere in which 10% of oxygen gas is mixed. The ratio of Ta : 0 was 1 : 2 and 1 : 2.49 by AES and RBS examination, respectively. The heat-treatment at $700^{\circ}C$ in $O_{2}$ ambient led to induce crystallization. When the heat-treatment temperature was $1000^{\circ}C$, the dielectric constant was 20.5 in $O_{2}$ ambient and 23 in $N_{2}$ ambient, respectively. The crystal structure of $Ta_{2}O_{5}$ film was pseudo hexagonal of ${\delta}-Ta_{2}O_{5}$. The flat band voltage shift(${\Delta}V_{FB}$) of the specimens and the leakage current density were decreased for higher oxygen mixing ratio. The maximum breakdown field was 2.4MV/cm at the oxygen mixing ratio of 10%. The $Ta_{2}O_{5}$ films will be applicable to hydrogen ion sensitive film and gate oxide material for memory device.