• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.359-365
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• 2007

In this paper we present a bottom-gate type of zinc oxide (ZnO) and Gallium (Ga) doped zinc oxide (GZO) based thin film transistors (TFTs) through applying a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method at room temperature. The gate leakage current can be reduced up to several ph by applying $SiO_2$ thermally grown instead of using new gate oxide materials. The root mean square (RMS) values of the ZnO and GZO film surface were measured as 1.07 nm and 1.65 nm, respectively. Also, the transmittances of the ZnO and GZO film were more than 80% and 75%, respectively, and they were changed as their film thickness. The ZnO and GZO film had a wurtzite structure that was arranged well as a (002) orientation. The ZnO TFT had a threshold voltage of 2.5 V, a field effect mobility of $0.027\;cm^2/(V{\cdot}s)$, a on/off ratio of $10^4$, a gate voltage swing of 17 V/decade and it operated in a enhancement mode. In case of the GZO TFT, it operated in a depletion mode with a threshold voltage of -3.4 V, a field effect mobility of $0.023\;cm^2/(V{\cdot}s)$, a on/off ratio of $2{\times}10^4$ and a gate voltage swing of 3.3 V/decade. We successfully demonstrated that the TFTs with the enhancement and depletion mode type can be fabricated by using pure ZnO and 1wt% Ga-doped ZnO.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.115-121
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• 2013

We fabricated thin film transistors (TFTs) using TiInZnO(TiIZO) thin films as active channel layer. The thin films of TiIZO were deposited at room temperature by RF-magnetron co-sputtering system from InZnO(IZO) and Ti targets. We examined the effects of titanium addition by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the electrical characteristics of the TFTs. The TiIZO TFTs were investigated according to the radio-frequency power applied to the Ti target. We found that the transistor on-off currents were greatly influenced by the composition of titanium addition, which suppressed the formation of oxygen vacancies, because of the stronger oxidation tendency of Ti relative to that of Zn or In. A optimized TiIZO TFT with rf power 40W of Ti target showed good performance with an on/off current ratio greater than $10^5$, a field-effect mobility of 2.09 [$cm^2/V{\cdot}s$], a threshold voltage of 2.2 [V] and a subthreshold swing of 0.492 [V/dec.].

• Journal of the Korean Physical Society
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• v.73 no.9
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• pp.1351-1355
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• 2018

The photocurrent characteristics of zinc-oxide (ZnO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) prepared using radio-frequency sputtering and spin-coating methods were investigated. Various characterization methods were used to compare the physical and the chemical properties of the sputtered and the spin-coated ZnO films. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to investigate the chemical composition and state of the ZnO films. The transmittance and the optical band gap were measured by using UV-vis spectrometry. The crystal structures of the prepared ZnO films were examined by using an X-ray diffractometer, and the surfaces of the films were investigated by using scanning electron microscopy. ZnO TFTs were prepared using both sputter and solution processes, both of which showed photocurrent characteristics when illuminated by light. The sputtered ZnO TFTs had a photoresponsivity of 3.08 mA/W under illumination with 405-nm light while the solution-processed ZnO TFTs had a photoresponsivity of 5.56 mA/W. This study provides useful information for the development of optoelectronics based on ZnO.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.66.1-66.1
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• 2012

Although all printed cost-less radio frequency identification (RFID) tags have been considered as a core tool for bringing up a ubiquitous society, the difficulties in integrating thin film transistors (TFTs), diodes and capacitors on plastic foils using a single in-line printing method nullify their roles for the realization of the ubiquitous society1,2. To prove the concept of all printed cost-less RFID tag, the practical degree of the integration of those devices on the plastic foils should be successfully printed to demonstrate multi bit RFID tag. The tag contains key device units such as 13.56 MHz modulating TFT, digital logic gates and 13.56 MHz rectifier to generate and transfer multi bit digital codes via a wireless communication (13.56 MHz). However, those key devices have never been integrated on the plastic foils using printing method yet because the electrical fluctuation of fully printed TFTs and diodes on plastic foils could not be controlled to show the function of desired devices. In this work, fully gravure printing process in printing 13.56 MHz operated 32 bit RFID tags on plastic foils has been demonstrated for the first time to prove all printed RFID tags on plastic foils can wirelessly generate and transfer 32 bit digital codes using the radio frequency of 13.56 MHz. This result proved that the electrical fluctuations of printed TFTs and diodes on plastic foils should be controlled in the range of maximum 20% to properly operate 32 bit RFID tags.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.470-470
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• 2013

Recently, active materials such as amorphous silicon (a-Si), poly crystalline silicon (poly-Si), transition metal oxide semiconductors (TMO), and organic semiconductors have been demonstrated for flexible electronics. In order to apply flexible devices on the polymer substrates, all layers should require the characteristic of flexibility as well as the low temperature process. Especially, pentacene thin film transistors (TFTs) have been investigated for probable use in low-cost, large-area, flexible electronic applications such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, smart cards, display backplane driver circuits, and sensors. Since pentacene TFTs were studied, their electrical characteristics with varying single variable such as strain, humidity, and temperature have been reported by various groups, which must preferentially be performed in the flexible electronics. For example, the channel mobility of pentacene organic TFTs mainly led to change in device performance under mechanical deformation. While some electrical characteristics like carrier mobility and concentration of organic TFTs were significantly changed at the different temperature. However, there is no study concerning multivariable. Devices actually worked in many different kinds of the environment such as thermal, light, mechanical bending, humidity and various gases. For commercialization, not fewer than two variables of mechanism analysis have to be investigated. Analyzing the phenomenon of shifted characteristics under the change of multivariable may be able to be the importance with developing improved dielectric and encapsulation layer materials. In this study, we have fabricated flexible pentacene TFTs on polymer substrates and observed electrical characteristics of pentacene TFTs exposed to tensile and compressive strains at the different values of temperature like room temperature (RT), 40, 50, $60^{\circ}C$. Effects of bending and heating on the device performance of pentacene TFT will be discussed in detail.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.677-680
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• 2012

The dependency of annealing temperature on the electrical performances in amorphous silicon-zinc-tin-oxide thin film transistors (SZTO-TFT) has been investigated. The SZTO channel layers were prepared by using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method with different annealing treatment. The field effect mobility (${\mu}_{FE}$) increased and threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) shifted to negative direction with increasing annealing temperature. As a result, oxygen vacancies generated in SZTO channel layer with increasing annealing temperature resulted in negative shift in $V_{th}$ and increase in on-current.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.674-677
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• 2011

The dependency of sputtering power on the electrical performances in amorphous HIZO-TFT (hafnium-indium-zinc-oxide thin film transistors) has been investigated. The HIZO channel layers were prepared by using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method with different sputtering power at room temperature. TOF-SIMS (time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry) was performed to confirm doping of hafnium atom in IZO film. The field effect mobility (${\mu}FE$) increased and threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) shifted to negative direction with increasing sputtering power. This result can be attributed to the high energy particles knocking-out oxygen atoms. As a result, oxygen vacancies generated in HIZO channel layer with increasing sputtering power resulted in negative shift in Vth and increase in on-current.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.115-116
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• 2012

The demand for flexible electronic systems such as wearable computers, E-paper, and flexible displays has increased due to their advantages of excellent portability, conformal contact with curved surfaces, light weight, and human friendly interfaces over present rigid electronic systems. This seminar introduces three recent progresses that can extend the application of high performance flexible inorganic electronics. The first part of this seminar will introduce a RRAM with a one transistor-one memristor (1T-1M) arrays on flexible substrates. Flexible memory is an essential part of electronics for data processing, storage, and radio frequency (RF) communication and thus a key element to realize such flexible electronic systems. Although several emerging memory technologies, including resistive switching memory, have been proposed, the cell-to-cell interference issue has to be overcome for flexible and high performance nonvolatile memory applications. The cell-to-cell interference between neighbouring memory cells occurs due to leakage current paths through adjacent low resistance state cells and induces not only unnecessary power consumption but also a misreading problem, a fatal obstacle in memory operation. To fabricate a fully functional flexible memory and prevent these unwanted effects, we integrated high performance flexible single crystal silicon transistors with an amorphous titanium oxide (a-TiO2) based memristor to control the logic state of memory. The $8{\times}8$ NOR type 1T-1M RRAM demonstrated the first random access memory operation on flexible substrates by controlling each memory unit cell independently. The second part of the seminar will discuss the flexible GaN LED on LCP substrates for implantable biosensor. Inorganic III-V light emitting diodes (LEDs) have superior characteristics, such as long-term stability, high efficiency, and strong brightness compared to conventional incandescent lamps and OLED. However, due to the brittle property of bulk inorganic semiconductor materials, III-V LED limits its applications in the field of high performance flexible electronics. This seminar introduces the first flexible and implantable GaN LED on plastic substrates that is transferred from bulk GaN on Si substrates. The superb properties of the flexible GaN thin film in terms of its wide band gap and high efficiency enable the dramatic extension of not only consumer electronic applications but also the biosensing scale. The flexible white LEDs are demonstrated for the feasibility of using a white light source for future flexible BLU devices. Finally a water-resist and a biocompatible PTFE-coated flexible LED biosensor can detect PSA at a detection limit of 1 ng/mL. These results show that the nitride-based flexible LED can be used as the future flexible display technology and a type of implantable LED biosensor for a therapy tool. The final part of this seminar will introduce a highly efficient and printable BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator on plastic substrates. Energy harvesting technologies converting external biomechanical energy sources (such as heart beat, blood flow, muscle stretching and animal movements) into electrical energy is recently a highly demanding issue in the materials science community. Herein, we describe procedure suitable for generating and printing a lead-free microstructured BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator on plastic substrates to overcome limitations appeared in conventional flexible ferroelectric devices. Flexible BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator was fabricated and the piezoelectric properties and mechanically stability of ferroelectric devices were characterized. From the results, we demonstrate the highly efficient and stable performance of BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.315-319
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• 2014

In this paper, we investigate visible light stress instability in radio frequency (RF) sputtered a-IGZO thin film transistors (TFTs). The oxygen flow rate differs during deposition to control the concentration of oxygen vacancies, which is confirmed via RT PL. A negative shift is observed in the threshold voltage ($V_{TH}$) under illumination with/without the gate bias, and the amount of shift in $V_{TH}$ is proportional to the concentration of oxygen vacancies. This can be explained to be consistent with the ionization oxygen vacancy model where the instability in $V_{TH}$ under illumination is caused by the increase in the channel conductivity by electrons that are photo-generated from oxygen vacancies, and it is maintained after the illumination is removed due to the negative-U center properties.