• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.160-160
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• 2010

Organic electronic devices require a passivation layer to ensure sufficient lifetime. Specifically, flexible organic electronic devices need a barrier layer that transmits less than $10^{-6}\;g/m^2/day$ of water and $10^{-5}\;g/m^2/day$ of oxygen. To increase the lifetime of organic electronic device, therefore, it is indispensable to protect the organic materials from water and oxygen. Severe groups have reported on multi-layerd barriers consisting inorganic thin films deposited by plasma enhenced chemical deposition (PECVD) or sputtering. However, it is difficult to control the formation of granular-type morphology and microscopic pinholes in PECVD and sputtering. On the contrary, atomic layer deoposition (ALD) is free of pinhole, highly uniform, conformal films and show good step coverage. In this study, the passivation layer was deposited using single-process PEALD. The passivation layer, in our case, was a bilayer system consisting of $Al_2O_3$ films and a $TiO_2$ buffer layer on a poly (ether sulfon) (PES) substrate. Because the deposition temperature and plasma power have a significant effect on the properties of the passivation layer, the characteristics of the $Al_2O_3$ films were investigated in terms of density under different deposition temperatures and plasma powers. The effect of the $TiO_2$ buffer layer also was also addressed. In addition, the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and organic light-emitting diode (OLEDs) lifetime were measured after forming a bilayer composed of $Al_2O_3/TiO_2$ on a PES substrate.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.99-105
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• 1999

The preparation and the functional properties of methylcellulose (MC) and hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose (HPMC) edible films with and without calcium were investigated. All the prepared films exhibited transparent and whitish color with $2.38{\sim}3.55$ haze intensity. Tensile strength of MC films were stronger than HPMC films with and without calcium, and moreover addition of calcium increased tensile, but elongation of HPMC film was specially lower than the other films. Solubility of films did not differ with calcium addition but decreased with increasing viscosity in HPMC films. water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of HPMC and MC film were not affected by calcium, but viscosity of film's raw material was important to determine WVTR in HPMC. Oxygen permeabilities of MC films were lower than those of HPMC films, and became lower with calcium addition. According to scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation on the surface characteristics, MC film with calcium had relatively uniform and smooth surface than HPMC films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.162-162
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• 2016

We present multifunctional indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films formed at room temperature by a normal sputtering system equipped with a plasma limiter which effectively blocks the bombardment of energetic negative oxygen ions (NOIs). The ITO thin film possesses not only low resistivity but also high gas diffusion barrier properties even though it is deposited on a plastic substrate at room temperature without post annealing. Argon neutrals incident to substrates in the sputtering have an optimal energy window from 20 to 30 eV under the condition of blocking energetic NOIs to form ITO nano-crystalline structure. The effect of blocking energetic NOIs and argon neutrals with optimal energy make the resistivity decrease to $3.61{\times}10-4{\Omega}cm$ and the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of 100 nm thick ITO film drop to $3.9{\times}10-3g/(m2day)$ under environmental conditions of 90% relative humidity and 50oC, which corresponds to a value of ~ 10-5 g/(m2day) at room temperature and air conditions. The multifunctional ITO thin films with low resistivity and low gas permeability will be highly valuable for plastic electronics applications.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.973-976
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• 2006

In this paper, the inorganic multi-layer encapsulation of thin film was newly adopted to protect the organic layer from moisture and oxygen. Using the electron beam, Sputter, inorganic multi-layer thin-film encapsulation was deposited onto the Ethylene Terephthalate(PET) and their interface properties between inorganic and organic layer were investigated. In this investigation, the SiON $SiO_2$ and parylene layer showed the most suitable properties. Under these conditions, the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) for PET can be reduced from level of $0.57g/m^2/day$ (bare substrate) to $1^{\ast}10^{-5}g/m^2/day$ after application of a SiON and $SiO_2$ layer. These results indicate that the $PET/SiO_2/SiON/Parylene$ barrier coatings have high potential for flexible organic light-emitting diode(OLED) applications.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.36-40
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• 2007

Inorganic layers, such as SiOxNy and SiOx deposited using plasma sublimation method, were tested as passivation layer for organic thin-film-transistors (OTFTs). OTFTs with bottom-gate and bottom-contact structure were fabricated using pentacene as organic semiconductor and an organic gate insulator. SiOxNy layer gave little change in characteristics of OTFTs, but SiOx layer degraded the performance of OTFTs severely. Inferior barrier properties related to its lower film density, higher water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and damage due to process environment of oxygen of SiOx film could explain these results. Polyurea and polyvinyl acetates (PVA) were tested as organic passivation layers also. PVA showed good properties as a buffer layer to reduce the damage come from the vacuum deposition process of upper passivation layers. From these results, a multilayer structure with upper SiOxNy film and lower PVA film is expected to be a superior passivation layer for OTFTs.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07c
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• pp.1412-1413
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• 2006

In this research, an organic thin 13 passivation layer was newly adopted to prefect the organic layer from ambient moisture and oxygen. As the organic thin film passivation layer, poly methyl methacrylate thin films (ppMMA) were deposited using a plasma polymerization technique. In order to their passivation performance for OLEDs, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of the ppMMAs were analyzed and luminance-current-voltage (L-I-V)/luminance-time (L-T) characteristics of the OLEDs with and without ppMMA passivation layer were investigated. The OLEDs had a structure of ITO/TPD (HTL)/Alq3(EML&ETL)/Al. The OLED with ppMMA passivation layer showed improved L-T performance than that of without ppMMA passivation layer.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.79-84
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• 2017

The solar cells should be protected from the moisture and oxygen in order to sustain the properties and reliability of the devices. In this research, we prepared the protection films on the flexible plastic substrates by spray coating method using organic-inorganic hybrid solutions. The protection characteristics were studied depending on the various process conditions (nozzle distance, thicknesses of the coatings, film structures). The organic-inorganic solutions for the protection film layer were synthesized by addition of $Al_2O_3$ ($P.S+Al_2O_3$) and $SiO_2$ ($P.S+SiO_2$) nano-powders into PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) and SA (sodium alginate) (P.S) organic solution. The optical transmittances of the protection film with the thicknesses of $5{\mu}m$ showed 91%. The optical transmittance decreased from 81.6% to 73.6% with the film thickness increased from $78{\mu}m$ to $178{\mu}m$. In addition, the protective films were prepared on the PEN (polyethylene naphthalate), PC (polycarbonate) single plastic substrates as well as the Acrylate film coated on PC substrate (Acrylate film/PC double layer), and $Al_2O_3$ film coated on PEN substrate ($Al_2O_3$ film/PEN double layer) using the $P.S+Al_2O_3$ organic-inorganic hybrid solutions. The optimum protection film structure was studied by means of the measurements of water vapor transmittance rate (WVTR) and surface morphology. The protective film on PEN/$Al_2O_3$ double layer substrate showed the best water protective property, indicating the WVTR value of $0.004gm/m^2-day$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.100-101
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• 2012

The plasma damage free and room temperature processedthin film deposition technology is essential for realization of various next generation organic microelectronic devices such as flexible AMOLED display, flexible OLED lighting, and organic photovoltaic cells because characteristics of fragile organic materials in the plasma process and low glass transition temperatures (Tg) of polymer substrate. In case of directly deposition of metal oxide thin films (including transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS)) on the organic layers, plasma damages against to the organic materials is fatal. This damage is believed to be originated mainly from high energy energetic particles during the sputtering process such as negative oxygen ions, reflected neutrals by reflection of plasma background gas at the target surface, sputtered atoms, bulk plasma ions, and secondary electrons. To solve this problem, we developed the NBAS (Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering) process as a plasma damage free and room temperature processed sputtering technology. As a result, electro-optical properties of NBAS processed ITO thin film showed resistivity of $4.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}m$ and high transmittance (>90% at 550 nm) with nano- crystalline structure at room temperature process. Furthermore, in the experiment result of directly deposition of TCO top anode on the inverted structure OLED cell, it is verified that NBAS TCO deposition process does not damages to the underlying organic layers. In case of deposition of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film on the plastic polymer substrate, the room temperature processed sputtering coating of high quality TCO thin film is required. During the sputtering process with higher density plasma, the energetic particles contribute self supplying of activation & crystallization energy without any additional heating and post-annealing and forminga high quality TCO thin film. However, negative oxygen ions which generated from sputteringtarget surface by electron attachment are accelerated to high energy by induced cathode self-bias. Thus the high energy negative oxygen ions can lead to critical physical bombardment damages to forming oxide thin film and this effect does not recover in room temperature process without post thermal annealing. To salve the inherent limitation of plasma sputtering, we have been developed the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process as the high quality oxide thin film deposition process at room temperature. The MFSS process is effectively eliminate or suppress the negative oxygen ions bombardment damage by the plasma limiter which composed permanent magnet array. As a result, electro-optical properties of MFSS processed ITO thin film (resistivity $3.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, transmittance 95% at 550 nm) have approachedthose of a high temperature DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) ITO thin film were. Also, AOS (a-IGZO) TFTs fabricated by MFSS process without higher temperature post annealing showed very comparable electrical performance with those by DMS process with $400^{\circ}C$ post annealing. They are important to note that the bombardment of a negative oxygen ion which is accelerated by dc self-bias during rf sputtering could degrade the electrical performance of ITO electrodes and a-IGZO TFTs. Finally, we found that reduction of damage from the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment drives improvement of crystalline structure in the ITO thin film and suppression of the sub-gab states in a-IGZO semiconductor thin film. For realization of organic flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates, gas barrier coatings are required to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency flexible AMOLEDs needs an extremely low water vapor transition rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$. The key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required (under ${\sim}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$) is the suppression of nano-sized defect sites and gas diffusion pathways among the grain boundaries. For formation of high quality single inorganic gas barrier layer, we developed high density nano-structured Al2O3 single gas barrier layer usinga NBAS process. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to a nano- crystalline phase with various grain sizes in a single inorganic thin film. As a result, the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film have improved order of magnitude compared with that of conventional $Al_2O_3$ layers made by the RF magnetron sputteringprocess under the same sputtering conditions; the WVTR of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film was about $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ by just single layer.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.402-406
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• 2019

Recently, semiconducting organic materials have been spotlighted as next-generation electronic materials based on their tunable electrical and optical properties, low-cost process, and flexibility. However, typical organic semiconductor materials are vulnerable to moisture and oxygen. Therefore, an encapsulation layer is essential for application of electronic devices. In this study, SiN_x thin films deposited at process temperatures below 150 ℃ by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) were characterized for application as an encapsulation layer on organic devices. A single structured SiN_x thin film was optimized as an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) encapsulation layer at process temperature of 80 ℃. The optimized SiN_x film exhibited excellent water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of less than 5 × 10^-5 g/㎡·day and transmittance of over 87.3% on the visible region with thickness of 1 ㎛. Application of the SiN_x thin film on the top-emitting OLED showed that the PECVD process did not degrade the electrical properties of the device, and the OLED with SiN_x exhibited improved operating lifetime

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.95-95
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• 2014

An OLED(Organic Light-Emitting Diode) device based on the emissive electroluminescent layer a film of organic materials. OLED is used for many electronic devices such as TV, mobile phones, handheld games consoles. ULVAC's mass production systems are indispensable to the manufacturing of OLED device. ULVAC is a manufacturer and worldwide supplier of equipment and vacuum systems for the OLED, LCD, Semiconductor, Electronics, Optical device and related high technology industries. The SMD Series are single-substrate sputtering systems for deposition of films such as metal films and TCO (Transparent Conductive Oxide) films. ULVAC has delivered a large number of these systems not only Organic Evaporating systems but also LTPS CVD systems. The most important technology of thin-film encapsulation (TFE) is preventing moisture($H_2O$) and oxygen permeation into flexible OLED devices. As a polymer substrate does not offer the same barrier performance as glass substrate, the TFE should be developed on both the bottom and top side of the device layers for sufficient lifetimes. This report provides a review of promising thin-film barrier technologies as well as the WVTR(Water Vapor Transmission Rate) properties. Multilayer thin-film deposition technology of organic and inorganic layer is very effective method for increasing barrier performance of OLED device. Gases and water in the organic evaporating system is having a strong influence as impurities to OLED device. CRYO pump is one of the very useful vacuum components to reduce above impurities. There for CRYO pump is faster than conventional TMP exhaust velocity of gases and water. So, we suggest new method to make a good vacuum condition which is CRYO Trap addition on OLED evaporator. Alignment accuracy is one of the key technologies to perform high resolution OLED device. In order to reduce vibration characteristic of CRYO pump, ULVAC has developed low vibration CRYO pumps to achieve high resolution alignment performance between Metal mask and substrate. This report also includes ULVAC's approach for these issues.