• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.154-154
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• 2012

Flexible complementary inverters based on thin-film transistors (TFTs) are important because they have low power consumption and high voltage gain compared to single type circuits. We have manufactured flexible complementary inverters using pentacene and amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) for the p-channel and n-channel, respectively. The circuits were fabricated on polyimide (PI) substrate. Firstly, a thin poly-4-vinyl phenol (PVP) layer was spin coated on PI substrate to make a smooth surface with rms surface roughness of 0.3 nm, which was required to grow high quality IGZO layers. Then, Ni gate electrode was deposited on the PVP layer by e-beam evaporator. 400-nm-thick PVP and 20-nm-thick ALD Al2O3 dielectric was deposited in sequence as a double gate dielectric layer for high flexibility and low leakage current. Then, IGZO and pentacene semiconductor layers were deposited by rf sputter and thermal evaporator, respectively, using shadow masks. Finally, Al and Au source/drain electrodes of 70 nm were respectively deposited on each semiconductor layer using shadow masks by thermal evaporator. The characteristics of TFTs and inverters were evaluated at different bending radii. The applied strain led to change in voltage transfer characteristics of complementary inverters as well as source-drain saturation current, field effect mobility and threshold voltage of TFTs. The switching threshold voltage of fabricated inverters was decreased with increasing bending radius, which is related to change in parameters of TFTs. Throughout the bending experiments, relationship between circuit performance and TFT characteristics under mechanical deformation could be elucidated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.479-479
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• 2011

Flexible inverters based on complementary thin-film transistor (CTFTs) are important because they have low power consumption and other advantages over single type TFT inverters. In addition, integrated CTFTs in flexible electronic circuits on low-cost, large area and mechanically flexible substrates have potentials in various applications such as radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs), sensors, and backplanes for flexible displays. In this work, we introduce flexible complementary inverters using pentacene and amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) for the p-channel and n-channel, respectively. The CTFTs were fabricated on polyimide (PI) substrate. Firstly, a thin poly-4-vinyl phenol (PVP) layer was spin coated on PI substrate to make a smooth surface with rms surface roughness of 0.3 nm, which was required to grow high quality IGZO layers. Then, Ni gate electrode was deposited on the PVP layer by e-beam evaporator. 400-nm-thick PVP and 20-nm-thick ALD Al2O3 dielectric was deposited in sequence as a double gate dielectric layer for high flexibility and low leakage current. Then, IGZO and pentacene semiconductor layers were deposited by rf sputter and thermal evaporator, respectively, using shadow masks. Finally, Al and Au source/drain electrodes of 70 nm were respectively deposited on each semiconductor layer using shadow masks by thermal evaporator. Basic electrical characteristics of individual transistors and the whole CTFTs were measured by a semiconductor parameter analyzer (HP4145B, Agilent Technologies) at room temperature in the dark. Performance of those devices then was measured under static and dynamic mechanical deformation. Effects of cyclic bending were also examined. The voltage transfer characteristics (Vout- Vin) and voltage gain (-dVout/dVin) of flexible inverter circuit were analyzed and the effects of mechanical bending will be discussed in detail.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.487-487
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• 2013

According to shrinkage of transistor, interface traps have been recognized as a major factor which limits the process development in manufacturing industry. The traps occur through spontaneous generation process, and spread into the forbidden band. There is a large change of current though a few traps are existed at the Si-SiO2 interface. Moreover, the increased temperature largely affects to the leakage current due to the interface trap. For this reason, we made an effort to find out the relationship between temperature and interface trap. The subthreshold swing (SS) was investigated to confirm the correlation. The simulated results show that the sphere of influence of trap is enlarged according to increase in temperature. To investigate the relationship between thermal energy and surface potential, we extracted the average surface potential and thermal energy (kT) according to the temperature. Despite an error rate of 6.5%, change rates of both thermal energy and average surface potential resemble each other in many ways. This allows that SS is affected by the trap within the range of the thermal energy from the surface energy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.347-348
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• 2013

To obtain high conversion efficiency in InGaN-based solar cells, it is critical to grow high indium (In) composed InGaN layer for increasing sun light absorption wavelength rage. At present, most InGaN-based solar cells adopt InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well (MQW) structure for high crystalline quality of InGaN with high In composition. In this study, we fabricated and compared the performances of two types of InGaN/GaN MQW solar cells which have the 15% (SC 15) and 25% (SC 25) of In composition at quantum well layer. Although both devices showed similar dark current density and leakage current, SC 15 showed better performance under AM 1.5G illumination as shown in Fig. 1. It is interesting to note that SC 25 showed severe current density decrease as increasing voltages. As a result, it lowered short circuit current density and fill factor of the device. However, SC 15 showed steady current density and over 75 % of fill factor. To investigate these differencesmore clearly, we analyzed their photoluminescence (PL) spectra under various applied voltages as shown in Fig. 2. At the same time, photocurrent, which was generated by PL excitation, was also measured as shown in Fig. 3. Further, we investigated the relationship between piezoelectric field and performance of InGaN based solar cell varying indium composition.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2009

The effects of $HfO_2$ film thickness on electrical, optical, and structural properties were investigated. We fabricated ITO/$HfO_2$/ITO metal-insulator- metal (MIM) capacitor using transparent conducting oxide. When $HfO_2$ film thickness increase from 50 nm to 300 nm, dielectric constant of $HfO_2$ was decreased from 20.87 to 9.72. The transparent capacitor shows an overall high performance, such as a dielectric constant about 21 by measuring the ITO/$HfO_2$/ITO capacitor structures and a low leakage current of $2.75{\times}10^{-12}\;A/cm^2$ at +5 V. Transmittance above 80% was observed in visible region.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.103-108
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• 1997

Silicon field emitter arrays (FEAs) have been fabricated by a novel method employing a two-step tip etch and a spin-on-glass (SOG) etch-back process using double layered thermal/tetraethylortho-silicate (TEOS) oxides as a gate dielectric. A partial etching was performed by coating a low viscous photo resist and $O_2$ plasma ashing on order to form the double layered gate dielectric. A small gate aperture with low gate leakage current was obtained by the novel process. The hight and the end radius of the fabricated emitter was about 1.1 $\mu\textrm{m}$ and less than 100$\AA$, respectively. The anode emission current from a 256 tips array was turned-on at a gate voltage of 40 V. Also, the gate current was less than 0.1% of the anode current.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.571-574
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• 2010

Surface recombination loss should be reduced for high efficiency of solar cells. To reduce this loss, the BSF (back surface field) is used. The BSF on the back of the p-type wafer forms a p+layer, which prevents the activity of electrons of the p-area for the rear recombination. As a result, the leakage current is reduced and the rear-contact has a good Ohmic contact. Therefore, the open-circuit-voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) of solar cells are increased. This paper investigates the formation of the rear contact process by comparing aluminum-paste (Al-paste) with pure aluminum-metal(99.9%). Under the vacuum evaporation process, pure aluminum-metal(99.9%) provides high conductivity and low contact resistance of $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$, but It is difficult to apply the standard industrial process to it because high vacuum is needed, and it's more expensive than the commercial equipment. On the other hand, using the Al-paste process by screen printing is simple for the formation of metal contact, and it is possible to produce the standard industrial process. However, Al-paste used in screen printing is lower than the conductivity of pure aluminum-metal(99.9) because of its mass glass frit. In this study, contact resistances were measured by a 4-point probe. The contact resistance of pure aluminum-metal was $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$ and that of Al-paste was $35.69\;m{\Omega}cm$. Then the rear contact was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM).

• Journal of Korean Vacuum Science & Technology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.73-77
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• 2000

Single crystal and polycrystalline Si thin films were doped with phosphorus by a 2-zone diffusion method to develop the low-resistivity polycrystalline Si electrode for a hemispherical grain. Solid phosphorus source was used in order to achieve uniformly and highly doped surface region of polycrystalline Si films having rough surface morphology. In case of 2-zone diffusion method, it is proved that the heavy doping near the surface area can be achieved even at a relatively low temperature. SIMS analysis revealed that phosphorus doping concentration in case of using solid P as a doping source was about 50 times as that of phosphine source at 750$^{\circ}C$. Also, ASR analysis revealed that the carrier concentration was about 50 times as that of phosphine. In order to evaluate the electrical characteristics of doped polycrystalline Si films for semiconductor devices, MOS capacitors were fabricated to measure capacitance of polycrystalline Si films. In ${\pm}$2 V measuring condition, Si films, doped with solid source, have 8% higher $C_{min}$ than that of unadditional doped Si films and 3% higher $C_{min}$ than that of Si films doped with $PH_3$ source. The leakage current of these films was a few fA/${\mu}m^2$. As a result, a 2-zone diffusion method is suggested as an effective method to achieve highly doped polycrystalline Si films even at low temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.114-114
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• 2010

최근 고용량의 디커플링 캐패시터를 기판에 내장하여 고주파 발생의 원인인 배선길이와 실장 면적을 획기적으로 줄이는 임베디드 디커플링 캐패시터에 대한 연구가 활발히 진행되고 있다. 하지만 기존의 공정들은 높은 공정온도와 같은 공정상의 한계를 가지고 있어 상온 저 진공 분위기에서 세라믹 분말을 기판에 고속 분사시켜 기공과 균열이 거의 없는 치밀한 나노구조의 세라믹 제작이 가능한 후막코팅기술인 Aerosol Deposition Method (ADM)에 착목하였으며, 이 ADM을 박막공정으로 응용하여 $BaTiO_3$ 박막을 제작하고 고용량의 디커플링 캐패시터 제작을 실현하고자 한다. 하지만, Cu 기판 상에 성막 된 $0.5\;{\mu}m$이하의 $BaTiO_3$ 박막에서는 $BaTiO_3$ 분말 내에 존재하는 평균입자 보다 큰 입자와 응집분말로 인해 발생하는 pore, crater, not-fully-crushed particles와 같은 거시적인 결함들에서의 전류 통전과 울퉁불퉁한 $BaTiO_3$ 박막과 기판 사이의 계면에서의 전계의 집중에 의한 전류의 증가로 인하여 큰 누설전류 발생하는 문제에 봉착하였다. 이러한 문제를 해결하기 위하여 제시된 효과적인 방법으로 Stainless steel 기판과 같이 표면경도가 높은 기판을 사용하는 것이며, 이를 통해 $0.2\;{\mu}m$의 두께까지 유전 $BaTiO_3$ 박막을 성막 할 수 있었으며, 치밀한 표면 미세구조와 줄어든 $BaTiO_3$ 박막과 기판 사이의 계면의 거칠기를 확인하였다. 하지만, $BaTiO_3$ 박막 내에 발생하는 누설전류의 근본원인을 확인하기 위해서는 누설전류에 대한 미시적인 접근이 더욱 요구된다. 이에 본 연구에서는 누설전류 발생원인의 미시적 접근을 위해 두께에 따른 $BaTiO_3$ 박막의 누설전류 전도기구에 대한 조사하였으며, 이를 통해 $BaTiO_3$ 박막내 발생하는 누설전류의 원인은 $BaTiO_3$막 내에서 donor로서 역할을 하는 oxygen vacancy와 불균일한 전계의 집중으로 인한 전자의 tunneling 현상임을 확인할 수 있었다. 또한, Nano-indenter와 Conductive atomic force microscopic를 이용한 정밀 측정을 통해 표면경도의 중요성을 재확인하였으며 $BaTiO_3$ 박막의 두께가 $0.2\;{\mu}m$이하로 더욱 얇아지게 되면 입자간 결합 문제 또한 ADM을 박막화 하는데 있어 중요한 요소임을 확인하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.257-257
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• 2010

One of the critical issues for applications of flexible organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) for flexible electronic systems is the electrical stabilities of the OTFT devices, including variation of the current on/off ratio ($I_{on}/I_{off}$), leakage current, threshold voltage, and hysteresis, under repetitive mechanical deformation. In particular, repetitive mechanical deformation accelerates the degradation of device performance at the ambient environment. In this work, electrical stabilities of the pentacene organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) employing multi-stack hybrid encapsulation layers were investigated under mechanical cyclic bending. Flexible bottom-gated pentacene-based OTFTs fabricated on flexible polyimide substrate with poly-4-vinyl phenol (PVP) dielectric as a gate dielectric were encapsulated by the plasma-deposited organic layer and atomic layer deposited inorganic layer. For cyclic bending experiment of flexible OTFTs, the devices were cyclically bent up to $10^5$ times with 5mm bending radius. In the most of the devices after $10^5$ times of bending cycles, the off-current of the OTFT with no encapsulation layers was quickly increased due to increases in the conductivity of the pentacene caused by doping effects from $O_2$ and $H_2O$ in the atmosphere, which leads to decrease in the $I_{on}/I_{off}$ and increase in the hysteresis. With encapsulation layers, however, the electrical stabilities of the OTFTs were improved significantly. In particular, the OTFTs with multi-stack hybrid encapsulation layer showed the best electrical stabilities up to the bending cycles of $10^5$ times compared to the devices with single organic encapsulation layer. Changes in electrical properties of cyclically bent OTFTs with encapsulation layers will be discussed in detail.