• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.996-1000
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• 2005

Experimental results are presented for the degradation of 3 nm-thick gate oxide $(SiO_2)$ under both Negative-bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) and Hot-carrier-induced (HCI) stresses using P and NMOSFETS, The devices are annealed with hydrogen or deuterium gas at high-pressure $(1\~5\;atm.)$ to introduce higher concentration in the gate oxide. Both interface trap and oxide bulk trap are found to dominate the reliability of gate oxide during electrical stress. The degradation mechanism depends on the condition of electrical stress that could change the location of damage area in the gate oxide. It was found the trap generation in the gate oxide film is mainly related to the breakage of Si-H bonds in the interface or the bulk area. We suggest that deuterium bonds in $SiO_2$ film are effective in suppressing the generation of traps related to the energetic hot carriers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.45-48
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• 2000

High dielectric (Ba,Sr)TiO$_3$ thin films were etched in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) as a function of C1$_2$/Ar gas mixing ratio. Under Cl$_2$(20)/Ar(80), the maximum etch rate of the BST films was 400$\AA$/min and selectivities of BST to Pt and PR were obtained 0.4 and 0.2, respectively. We investigated the etched surface of BST by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD). From the result of XPS analysis, we found that residues of Ba-Cl and Ti-Cl bonds remained on the surface of the etched BST for high boiling point. The surface roughness decreased as Cl$_2$ increases in Cl$_2$/Ar plasma because of non-volatile etching products. This changed the nature of the crystallinity of BST. From the result of XRD analysis, the crystalliility of etched BST film maintained as similar to as-deposited BST under Ar only and Cl$_2$(20)/Ar(80). However, (100) orientation intensity of etched BST film abruptly decreased at Cl$_2$ only plasma. It was caused that Cl compounds were redeposited on the etched BST surface and damaged to crystallinity of BST film during the etch process.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.148-153
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• 2024

As complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) is scaled down to achieve higher chip density, thin-film layers have been deposited iteratively. The poor film uniformity resulting from deposition or chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) significantly affects chip yield. Therefore, the development of novel fabrication processes to enhance film uniformity is required. In this context, high-pressure deuterium annealing (HPDA) is proposed to reduce the surface roughness resulting from the CMP. The HPDA is carried out in a diluted deuterium atmosphere to achieve cost-effectiveness while maintaining high pressure. To confirm the effectiveness of HPDA, time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) are employed. It is confirmed that the absorbed deuterium gas facilitates the diffusion of silicon atoms, thereby reducing surface roughness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.387-387
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• 2013

Currently, the flash memory and the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) have been used in a variety of applications. However, the downsizing of devices and the increasing density of recording medias are now in progress. So there are many demands for development of new semiconductor memory for next generation. Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is one of the prospective semiconductor memories with excellent features including non-volatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage, and high storage density. MRAM is composed of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) stack and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The MTJ stack consists of various magnetic materials, metals, and a tunneling barrier layer. Recently, MgO thin films have attracted a great attention as the prominent candidates for a tunneling barrier layer in the MTJ stack instead of the conventional Al2O3 films, because it has low Gibbs energy, low dielectric constant and high tunneling magnetoresistance value. For the successful etching of high density MRAM, the etching characteristics of MgO thin films as a tunneling barrier layer should be developed. In this study, the etch characteristics of MgO thin films have been investigated in various gas mixes using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICPRIE). The Cl2/Ar, CH3OH/Ar, and CH4/Ar gas mix were employed to find an optimized etching gas for MgO thin film etching. TiN thin films were employed as a hard mask to increase the etch selectivity. The etch rates were obtained using surface profilometer and etch profiles were observed by using the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.341-341
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• 2012

Recently, oxide semi-conductor materials have been investigated as promising candidates replacing a-Si:H and poly-Si semiconductor because they have some advantages of a room-temperature process, low-cost, high performance and various applications in flexible and transparent electronics. Particularly, amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) is an interesting semiconductor material for use in flexible thin film transistor (TFT) fabrication due to the high carrier mobility and low deposition temperatures. In this work, we demonstrated improvement of flexibility in IGZO TFTs, which were fabricated on polyimide (PI) substrate. At first, a thin poly-4vinyl phenol (PVP) layer was spin coated on PI substrate for making a smooth surface up to 0.3 nm, which was required to form high quality active layer. Then, Ni gate electrode of 100 nm was deposited on the bare PVP layer by e-beam evaporator using a shadow mask. The PVP and $Al_2O_3$ layers with different thicknesses were used for organic/inorganic multi gate dielectric, which were formed by spin coater and atomic layer deposition (ALD), respectively, at $200^{\circ}C$. 70 nm IGZO semiconductor layer and 70 nm Al source/drain electrodes were respectively deposited by RF magnetron sputter and thermal evaporator using shadow masks. Then, IGZO layer was annealed on a hotplate at $200^{\circ}C$ for 1 hour. Standard electrical characteristics of transistors were measured by a semiconductor parameter analyzer at room temperature in the dark and performance of devices then was also evaluated under static and dynamic mechanical deformation. The IGZO TFTs incorporating hybrid gate dielectrics showed a high flexibility compared to the device with single structural gate dielectrics. The effects of mechanical deformation on the TFT characteristics will be discussed in detail.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.169-170
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• 2006

In this study, ultra thin films of ferroelectric vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (VF2-TrFE) copolymer were fabricated on degenerated Si (n+, $0.002\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$) using by spin coating method. A 1~5 wt% diluted solution of purified vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (VF2:TrFE=70:30) in a dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent were prepared and deposited on silicon wafers at a spin rate of 2000~5000rpm for 30 seconds. After annealing in a vacuum ambient at $200^{\circ}C$ for 60 min, upper gold electrodes were deposited by vacuum evaporation for electrical measurement. X-ray diffraction results showed that the VF2-TrFE films on Si substrates had $\beta$-phase of copolymer structures. The capacitance on $n^+$-Si(100) wafer showed hysteresis behavior like a butterfly shape and this result indicates clearly that the dielectric films have ferroelectric properties. The typical measured remnant polarization (2Pr) and coercive filed (EC) values measured using a computer controlled a RT-66A standardized ferroelectric test system (Radiant Technologies) were about $0.54\;C/cm^2$ and 172 kV/cm, respectively, in an applied electric field of ${\pm}0.75\;MV/cm$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.470-475
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• 2009

We deposited $Al_2O_3$ thin films on GaN by remote plasma atomic layer deposition (RPALD) technique, trimethylaluminum(TMA) and oxygen were used as precursors, at fixed process condition, the number of cycle were changed. Growth rate per cycle was $1.2\;{\AA}$/cycle. and Growth rate was in proportion to a number of cycle, the GaN MIS capacitors that $Al_2O_3$ thin film were deposited above 12 nm, have excellent electrical properties, a low electrical leakage current density(${\sim}10^{-10}\;A/cm^2$ at 1.5 MV), but below 12 nm, we can see the degradation of the leakage current density. After post deposition annealing, Dielectric constant was estimated by 1 MHz high-frequency C-V method, it was varied with the anealing temperature from 6.9 at no post anealed to 7.6 at $800^{\circ}C$, and we can see a improvement of the leakage current density and breakdown voltage by post deposition anealing below $700^{\circ}C$, but, after anealed at $800^{\circ}C$, we can see the degradation of the leakage current density and breakdown voltage.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.10-15
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• 1999

White emission thin film electroluminescent device was fabricated using ZnS for phosphor layer and BST ferroelectric thin film for insulating layer. For fabrication conditions of BST thin film, stoichiometry of target was $Ba_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}TiO_3$, substrate temperature was $400^{\circ}C$, working pressure was 30 mTorr, and A:$O_2$ ratio was 9:1. At this time, dielectric constant was 209 at 1kHz frequency. For phosphor layer ZnS:Mn, ZnS:Tb, and ZnS:Ag were used. Mixing rates of activators were respectively 0.8, 0.8, and 1 wt%. Total thickness of phosphor tapers was 500 nm, thickness of lower insulating layer was 200 nm, and thickness of upper insulating layer was 400 nm. In this conditions, luminescence threshold voltage of thin film electroluminescent device was $95\;V_{rms}$, maximum brightness was $3,000\;cd/m^2$ at $150\;V_{rms}$. Luminescence spectrum peak was observed at region of blue(450 nm), green(550 nm), and red(600 nm).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.7-14
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• 2000

A Bi$_{4}$Ti$_{3}$O$_{12}$ (BIT) thin film is prepared by sol-gel method using acetate precursors and evaluated whether it could be applied to NVFRAM (Non-Volatile Ferroelectric RAM). The drying and the annealing temperature are 40$0^{\circ}C$ and $650^{\circ}C$, respectively and they are determined from the DT-TG (Differential Thermal-Thermal Gravimetric) analysis. The BIT thin film deposited on Pt/Ta/SiO$_{2}$/Si substrate shows orthorhombic perovskite phase. The grain size and the surface roughness are about 100 nm and 70.2$\AA$, respectively. The dielectric constant and the loss tangent at 10 KHz are 176 and 0.038, respectively, and the leakage current density at 100 ㎸/cm is 4.71 $mutextrm{A}$/$\textrm{cm}^2$. In the results of hysteresis loops measured at $\pm$250 ㎸/cm, the remanent polarization (Pt) and the coercive field (Ec) are 5.92 $\mu$C/$\textrm{cm}^2$ and 86.3 ㎸/cm, respectively. After applying 10$^{9}$ square pulses of $\pm$5V, the remanent polarization of the BIT thin film decreases as much as about 33% from 5.92 $\mu$C/$\textrm{cm}^2$ of initial state to 3.95 $\mu$C/$\textrm{cm}^2$.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.430-437
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• 2016

Aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$) thin films were grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using a new Al metalorganic precursor, dimethyl aluminum sec-butoxide ($C_{12}H_{30}Al_2O_2$), and water vapor ($H_2O$) as the reactant at deposition temperatures ranging from 150 to $300^{\circ}C$. The ALD process showed typical self-limited film growth with precursor and reactant pulsing time at $250^{\circ}C$; the growth rate was 0.095 nm/cycle, with no incubation cycle. This is relatively lower and more controllable than the growth rate in the typical $ALD-Al_2O_3$ process, which uses trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and shows a growth rate of 0.11 nm/cycle. The as-deposited $ALD-Al_2O_3$ film was amorphous; X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy confirmed that its amorphous state was maintained even after annealing at $1000^{\circ}C$. The refractive index of the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ films ranged from 1.45 to 1.67; these values were dependent on the deposition temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ films deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ were stoichiometric, with no carbon impurity. The step coverage of the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ film was perfect, at approximately 100%, at the dual trench structure, with an aspect ratio of approximately 6.3 (top opening size of 40 nm). With capacitance-voltage measurements of the $Al/ALD-Al_2O_3/p-Si$ structure, the dielectric constant of the $ALD-Al_2O_3$ films deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ was determined to be ~8.1, with a leakage current density on the order of $10^{-8}A/cm^2$ at 1 V.