• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.49-54
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• 2021

The display industry is transitioning from traditional rigid products such as flat panel displays to flexible or wearable ones designed to be folded or rolled. Accordingly, colorless and optically transparent polyimide (CPI) films are one of the prime candidates to substitute traditional cover glass as a passivation layer to accommodate product flexibility. However, CPI films subjected to repetitive pure bending loads inevitably entail an accumulation of residual strain that can eventually cause wrinkles or delamination in the underlying component after a certain number of static and cyclic loading. The purpose of this study is to establish an experimental method to systematically evaluate the bending residual strain of CPI films. Films were monotonically and cyclically wrapped on mandrels of various diameters to ensure a constant strain in each. After unwrapping the wound CPI film, the residual radius of curvature remaining on the film was measured and converted into residual strain. The critical radius of curvature at which residual strain does not remain was about 5 mm, and the residual strain decreased in proportion to the log time. It is expected that flexible displays can be reliably designed using the data between the applied bending strain and the residual strain.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.290-293
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• 2015

The properties of the IZTO thin films on the glass were studied with a variation of the $SiO_2$ buffer layer thickness. $SiO_2$ buffer layers were deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) on the glass, and the In-Zn-Tin-Oxide (IZTO) thin films were deposited on the buffer layer by RF magnetron sputtering. All the IZTO thin films with the $SiO_2$ buffer layer are shown to be amorphous. Optimum $SiO_2$ buffer layer thickness was obtained through analyzing the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of the IZTO thin films. As a result, the IZTO surface roughness is 0.273 nm with a sheet resistance of $25.32{\Omega}/sq$ and the average transmittance is 82.51% in the visible region, at a $SiO_2$ buffer layer thickness of 40 nm. The result indicates that the uniformity of surface and the properties of the IZTO thin film on the glass were improved by employing the $SiO_2$ buffer layer and the IZTO thin film can be applied well to the transparent conductive oxide for display devices.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.72-76
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• 2015

150-nm-thick In-Zn-Tin-Oxide (IZTO) films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering after a 10 to 50-nm-thick $SiO_2$ buffer layer was deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates. The electrical, structural, and optical properties of the IZTO/$SiO_2$/PET films were analyzed with respect to the thickness of the $SiO_2$ buffer layer. The mechanical properties were outstanding at a $SiO_2$ thickness of 50 nm, with a resistivity of $1.45{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$, carrier concentration of $8.84{\times}10^{20}/cm^3$, hall mobility of $4.88cm^2/Vs$, and average IZTO surface roughness of 12.64 nm. Also, the transmittances were higher than 80%, and the structure of the IZTO films were amorphous, regardless of the $SiO_2$ thickness. These results indicate that these films are suitable for use as a transparent conductive oxide for transparency display devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.341.1-341.1
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• 2014

In the advanced material for the next generation display device, transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors (TAOS) are promising materials as a channel layer in thin film transistor (TFT). The TAOS have many advantages for large-area application compared with hydrogenated amorphous silicon TFT (a-Si:H) and organic semiconductor TFT. For the reasonable characteristics of TAOS, The a-IGZO has the excellent performances such as low temperature fabrication (R.T~), high mobility, visible region transparent, and reasonable on-off ratio. In this study, we investigated how the electric characteristics and physical properties are changed as various oxygen ratio when magnetron sputtering. we analysis a-IGZO film by AFM, EDS and I-V measurement. decreasing the oxygen ratio, the threshold voltage is shifted negatively and mobility is increasing. Through this correlation, we confirm the effect of oxygen ratio. We fabricated the bottom-gate a-IGZO TFTs. The gate insulator, SiO2 film was grown on heavily doped silicon wafer by thermal oxidation method. a-IGZO channel layer was deposited by RF magnetron sputtering. and the annealing condition is $350^{\circ}C$. Electrode were patterned Al deposition through a shadow mask(160/1000 um).

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.105-110
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• 2013

We fabricated an a-IGZO thin film transistor (TFT) with AZO/Ag/AZO transparent multilayer source/drain contacts by rf magnetron sputtering. a-IGZO TFT with AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer S/D electrodes (W/L = 400/50 ${\mu}m$) showed a subs-threshold swing of 3.78 V/dec, a minimum off-current of $10^{-12}$ A, a threshold voltage of 0.41 V, a field effect mobility of $10.86cm^2/Vs$, and an on/off ratio of $9{\times}10^9$. From the ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy, it was revealed that the enhanced electrical performance resulted from the lowering of the Schottky barrier between a-IGZO and Ag due to the insertion of an AZO layer and thus the AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer would be very appropriate for a promising S/D contact material for the fabrication of high performance TFTs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.620-624
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• 2015

We have studied structural, optical and electrical properties of In-Ga-doped ZnO (IGZO) thin films. The IGZO thin films were deposited on the corning 1737 glass by RF magnetron sputtering method. The RF power in sputtering process was varied as 30, 50, 70, and 90 W respectively. All of the IGZO thin films transmittance in the visible range (400 nm ~ 800 nm) was above 83%. XRD analysis showed the IGZO thin films amorphous structure of the thin films without any peak. And also IGZO thin film have low resistivity ($1.99{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$), high carrier concentration ($6.4{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$), and mobility ($10.3cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$). By the studies we found that IGZO transparent thin film can be used as optoelectronic material and introduced application possibility for future electronic devices.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.177-182
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• 2013

Transparent thin film transistors (TTFT) were fabricated on $N^+$ Si wafers. $SiO_2$, $Si_3N_4/SiO_2$ and $Al_2O_3/SiO_2$ grown on the wafers were used as gate insulators. The rf magnetron sputtered zinc tin oxide (ZTO) films were adopted as active layers. $N^+$ Si wafers were wet-oxidized to grow $SiO_2$. $Si_3N_4$ and $Al_2O_3$ films were deposited on the $SiO_2$ by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD), respectively. The mobility, $I_{on}/I_{off}$ and subthreshold swing (SS) were obtained from the transfer characteristics of TTFTs. The properties of gate insulators were analyzed by comparing the characteristics of TTFTs. The property variation of the ZTO TTFTs with time were observed.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.260-266
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• 2021

Synthesizing low-dimensional structures of oxide semiconductors is a promising approach to fabricate highly efficient gas sensors by means of possible enhancement in surface-to-volume ratios of their sensing materials. In this work, vertically aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods are successfully synthesized on a transparent glass substrate via seed-mediated hydrothermal synthesis method with the use of a ZnO nanoparticle seed layer, which is formed by thermally oxidizing a sputtered Zn metal film. Structural and optical characterization by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Raman spectroscopy reveals the successful preparation of the ZnO nanorods array of the single hexagonal wurtzite crystalline phase. From gas sensing measurements for the nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) gas, the vertically aligned ZnO nanorod array is observed to have a highly responsive sensitivity to NO₂ gas at relatively low concentrations and operating temperatures, especially showing a high maximum sensitivity to NO₂ at 250 ℃ and a low NO₂ detection limit of 5 ppm in dry air. These results along with a facile fabrication process demonstrate that the ZnO nanorods synthesized on a transparent glass substrate are very promising for low-cost and high-performance NO₂ gas sensors.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.219-226
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• 2023

Utilizing low-dimensional structures of oxide semiconductors is a promising approach to fabricate relevant gas sensors by means of potential enhancement in surface-to-volume ratios of their sensing materials. In this work, vertically aligned cupric oxide (CuO) nanorods are successfully synthesized on a transparent glass substrate via seed-mediated hydrothermal synthesis method with the use of a CuO nanoparticle seed layer, which is formed by thermally oxidizing a sputtered Cu metal film. Structural and optical characterization by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Raman spectroscopy reveals the successful preparation of the CuO nanorods array of the single monoclinic tenorite crystalline phase. From gas sensing measurements for the nitrogen monoxide (NO) gas, the vertically aligned CuO nanorod array is observed to have a highly responsive sensitivity to NO gas at relatively low concentrations and operating temperatures, especially showing a high maximum sensitivity to NO at 200 ℃ and a low NO detection limit of 2 ppm in dry air. These results along with a facile fabrication process demonstrate that the CuO nanorods synthesized on a transparent glass substrate are very promising for low-cost and high-performance NO gas sensors.

• 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.