• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.283-287
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• 2007

KIER has been developing the anode-supported flat tubular solid oxide fuel cell unit bundle for the intermediate temperature($700{\sim}800^{\circ}C$) operation. Anode-supported flat tubular cells have Ni/YSZ cermet anode support, 8 moi.% $Y_2O_3$ stabilized $ZrO_2(YSZ)$ thin electrolyte, and cathode multi-layer composed of Sr-doped $LaSrMnO_3(LSM)$, LSM-YSZ composite, and $LaSrCoFeO_3(LSCF)$. The prepared anode-supported flat tubular cell was joined with ferritic stainless steel cap by induction brazing process. Current collection for the cathode was achieved by winding Ag wire and $La_{0.6}Sr_{0.4}CoO_3(LSCo)$ paste, while current collection for the anode was achieved by using Ni wire and felt. For making stack, the prepared anode-supported flat tubular cells with effective electrode area of $90\;cm^2$ connected in series with 12 unit bundles, in which unit bundle consists of two cells connected in parallel. The performance of unit bundle in 3% humidified $H_2$ and air at $800^{\circ}C$ shows maximum power density of $0.39\;W/cm^2$ (@ 0.7V). Through these experiments, we obtained basic technology of the anode-supported flat tubular cell and established the proprietary concept of the anode-supported flat tubular cell unit bundle.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.66-79
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• 2008

Several oxides have recently been reported to have resistance-switching characteristics for nonvolatile memory (NVM) applications. Both binary and ternary oxides demonstrated great potential as resistive-switching memory elements. However, the switching mechanisms have not yet been clearly understood, and the uniformity and reproducibility of devices have not been sufficient for gigabit-NVM applications. The primary requirements for oxides in memory applications are scalability, fast switching speed, good memory retention, a reasonable resistive window, and constant working voltage. In this paper, we discuss several materials that are resistive-switching elements and also focus on their switching mechanisms. We evaluated non-stoichiometric polycrystalline oxides ($Nb_2O_5$, and $ZrO_x$) and subsequently the resistive switching of $Cu_xO$ and heavily Cu-doped $MoO_x$ film for their compatibility with modem transistor-process cycles. Single-crystalline Nb-doped $SrTiO_3$ (NbSTO) was also investigated, and we found a Pt/single-crystal NbSTO Schottky junction had excellent memory characteristics. Epitaxial NbSTO film was grown on an Si substrate using conducting TiN as a buffer layer to introduce single-crystal NbSTO into the CMOS process and preserve its excellent electrical characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.477-477
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• 2008

For more than three decades, the gate dielectrics in CMOS devices are $SiO_2$ because of its blocking properties of current in insulated gate FET channels. As the dimensions of feature size have been scaled down (width and the thickness is reduced down to 50 urn and 2 urn or less), gate leakage current is increased and reliability of $SiO_2$ is reduced. Many metal oxides such as $TiO_2$, $Ta_2O_4$, $SrTiO_3$, $Al_2O_3$, $HfO_2$ and $ZrO_2$ have been challenged for memory devices. These materials posses relatively high dielectric constant, but $HfO_2$ and $Al_2O_3$ did not provide sufficient advantages over $SiO_2$ or $Si_3N_4$ because of reaction with Si substrate. Recently, $HfO_2$ have been attracted attention because Hf forms the most stable oxide with the highest heat of formation. In addition, Hf can reduce the native oxide layer by creating $HfO_2$. However, new gate oxide candidates must satisfy a standard CMOS process. In order to fabricate high density memories with small feature size, the plasma etch process should be developed by well understanding and optimizing plasma behaviors. Therefore, it is necessary that the etch behavior of $HfO_2$ and plasma parameters are systematically investigated as functions of process parameters including gas mixing ratio, rf power, pressure and temperature to determine the mechanism of plasma induced damage. However, there is few studies on the the etch mechanism and the surface reactions in $BCl_3$ based plasma to etch $HfO_2$ thin films. In this work, the samples of $HfO_2$ were prepared on Si wafer with using atomic layer deposition. In our previous work, the maximum etch rate of $BCl_3$/Ar were obtained 20% $BCl_3$/ 80% Ar. Over 20% $BCl_3$ addition, the etch rate of $HfO_2$ decreased. The etching rate of $HfO_2$ and selectivity of $HfO_2$ to Si were investigated with using in inductively coupled plasma etching system (ICP) and $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma. The change of volume densities of radical and atoms were monitored with using optical emission spectroscopy analysis (OES). The variations of components of etched surfaces for $HfO_2$ was investigated with using x-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS). In order to investigate the accumulation of etch by products during etch process, the exposed surface of $HfO_2$ in $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma was compared with surface of as-doped $HfO_2$ and all the surfaces of samples were examined with field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscope (AFM).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.99-99
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• 2013

In this talk, I will present two research works in progress, which are: i) mapping of piezoelectric polarization and associated charge density distribution in the heteroepitaxial InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) structure of a light emitting diode (LED) by using inline electron holography and ii) in-situ observation of the polarization switching process of an ferroelectric Pb(Zr1-x,Tix)O3 (PZT) thin film capacitor under an applied electric field in transmission electron microscope (TEM). In the first part, I will show that strain as well as total charge density distributions can be mapped quantitatively across all the functional layers constituting a LED, including n-type GaN, InGaN/GaN MQWs, and p-type GaN with sub-nm spatial resolution (~0.8 nm) by using inline electron holography. The experimentally obtained strain maps were verified by comparison with finite element method simulations and confirmed that not only InGaN QWs (2.5 nm in thickness) but also GaN QBs (10 nm in thickness) in the MQW structure are strained complementary to accommodate the lattice misfit strain. Because of this complementary strain of GaN QBs, the strain gradient and also (piezoelectric) polarization gradient across the MQW changes more steeply than expected, resulting in more polarization charge density at the MQW interfaces than the typically expected value from the spontaneous polarization mismatch alone. By quantitative and comparative analysis of the total charge density map with the polarization charge map, we can clarify what extent of the polarization charges are compensated by the electrons supplied from the n-doped GaN QBs. Comparison with the simulated energy band diagrams with various screening parameters show that only 60% of the net polarization charges are compensated by the electrons from the GaN QBs, which results in the internal field of ~2.0 MV cm-1 across each pair of GaN/InGaN of the MQW structure. In the second part of my talk, I will present in-situ observations of the polarization switching process of a planar Ni/PZT/SrRuO3 capacitor using TEM. We observed the preferential, but asymmetric, nucleation and forward growth of switched c-domains at the PZT/electrode interfaces arising from the built-in electric field beneath each interface. The subsequent sideways growth was inhibited by the depolarization field due to the imperfect charge compensation at the counter electrode and preexisting a-domain walls, leading to asymmetric switching. It was found that the preexisting a-domains split into fine a- and c-domains constituting a $90^{\circ}$ stripe domain pattern during the $180^{\circ}$ polarization switching process, revealing that these domains also actively participated in the out-of-plane polarization switching. The real-time observations uncovered the origin of the switching asymmetry and further clarified the importance of charged domain walls and the interfaces with electrodes in the ferroelectric switching processes.