• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.138-143
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• 2015

Aluminum nitride, a compound semiconductor, has a Wurtzite structure; good material properties such as high thermal conductivity, great electric conductivity, high dielectric breakdown strength, a wide energy band gap (6.2eV), a fast elastic wave speed; and excellent in thermal and chemical stability. Furthermore, the thermal expansion coefficient of the aluminum nitride is similar to those of Si and GaAs. Due to these characteristics, aluminum nitride can be applied to electric packaging components, dielectric materials, SAW (surface acoustic wave) devices, and photoelectric devices. In this study, we surveyed the crystallization and preferred orientation of AlN thin films with an X-ray diffractometer. To fabricate the AlN thin film, we used the magnetron sputtering method with $N_2$, NH3 and Ar. According to an increase in the partial pressures of $N_2$ and $NH_3$, Al was nitrified and deposited onto a substrate in a molecular form. When AlN was fabricated with $N_2$, it showed a c-axis orientation and tended toward a high orientation with an increase in the temperature. On the other hand, when AlN was fabricated with $NH_3$, it showed a-axis orientation. This result is coincident with the proposed mechanism. We fabricated AlN thin films with an a-axis orientation by controlling the sputtering electric power, $NH_3$ pressure, deposition speed, and substrate temperature. According to the proposed mechanism, we also fabricated AlN thin films which demonstrated high a-axis and c-axis orientations.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.78-85
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• 2012

Aluminum nitride(AlN) is a compound (III-V group) of hexagonal system with a crystal structure. Its Wurzite phase is a very wide band gap semiconductor material. It has not only a high thermal conductivity, a high electrical resistance, a high electrical insulating constant, a high breakdown voltage and an excellent mechanical strength but also stable thermal and chemical characteristics. This study is on the preferred orientation characteristics of AlN thin films by reactive evaporation using $NH_3$. We have manufactured an AlN thin film and then have checked the crystal structure and the preferred orientation by using an X-ray diffractometer and have also observed the microstructure with TEM and AlN chemical structure with FT-IR. We can manufacture an excellent AlN thin film by reactive evaporation using $NH_3$ under 873 K of substrate temperature. The AlN thin film growth is dependent on Al supplying and $NH_3$ has been found to be effective as a source of $N_2$. However, the nuclear structure of AlN did not occur randomly around the substrate a particle of the a-axis orientation in fast growth speed becomes an earlier crystal structure and is shown to have an a-axis preferred orientation. Therefore, reactive evaporation using $NH_3$ is not affected by provided $H_2$ amount and this can be an easy a-axis orientation method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1226-1235
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• 2016

For wearable health monitoring systems, a fundamental problem is the limited space for storing energy, which can be translated into a short operational life. In this paper, a highly efficient active voltage doubling rectifier with a wide input range for micro-piezoelectric energy harvesting systems is proposed. To obtain a higher output voltage, the Dickson charge pump topology is chosen in this design. By replacing the passive diodes with unbalanced-biased comparator-controlled active counterparts, the proposed rectifier minimizes the voltage losses along the conduction path and solves the reverse leakage problem caused by conventional comparator-controlled active diodes. To improve the rectifier input voltage sensitivity and decrease the minimum operational input voltage, two low power common-gate comparators are introduced in the proposed design. To keep the comparator from oscillating, a positive feedback loop formed by the capacitor C is added to it. Based on the SMIC 0.18-μm standard CMOS process, the proposed rectifier is simulated and implemented. The area of the whole chip is 0.91×0.97 mm², while the rectifier core occupies only 13% of this area. The measured results show that the proposed rectifier can operate properly with input amplitudes ranging from 0.2 to 1.0V and with frequencies ranging from 20 to 3000 Hz. The proposed rectifier can achieve a 92.5% power conversion efficiency (PCE) with input amplitudes equal to 0.6 V at 200 Hz. The voltage conversion efficiency (VCE) is around 93% for input amplitudes greater than 0.3 V and load resistances larger than 20kΩ.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.41.2-41.2
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• 2011

Display 산업의 확대로 인해 광학적 특성 및 전기적 특성이 우수한 TCO (Transparent conductive oxide) 연구가 활발히 진행되고 있다. 기존에는 ITO가 대부분의 분야에서 이용되었지만 In의 경제적인 단점으로 인해 새로운 대체물로써 ZnO가 떠오르고 있다. ZnO는 전형적인 n-type 반도체이며, wide band gap 물질로써 Al, Ga, B과 같은 3 족 원소를 doping 함으로써 광학적 및 전기적 특성을 향상시킬 수 있다. 최근에는 ZnO의 이온반경과 비슷한 Ga을 도핑한 Ga-doped ZnO 박막에 대한 연구가 활발히 진행되고 있다. 이는 ZnO에 Ga을 도핑함으로써 격자결함을 최소화 시키고 carrier concentration 및 hall mobility를 향상시켜 전기전도도의 향상을 이루기 때문이다. 본 연구에서는 $Ga_2O_3$이 3wt% doping 된 ZnO rotating cylindrical target 을 DC magnetron sputtering 을 이용하여 2 kW의 파워와 70 kHz의 주파수를 고정하고, 증착 온도를 변화시켜 유리 기판 위에 Ga-doped ZnO 박막을 증착 하였다. 증착 시 온도가 Ga-doped ZnO 박막에 미치는 영향을 관찰하기 위해 박막 표면의 조성을 분석하였고, 결정성 및 전기적 특성의 변화를 통해 박막의 특성을 비교 평가하였다. Ga-doped ZnO 박막의 표면과 두께는 SEM (Scanning electron microscope) 분석을 통해 관찰하였고, XRD (X-ray diffractometer) 를 이용하여 결정학적 특성을 확인하였다. 또한 Van der Pauw 방법을 이용한 hall 측정을 통해 resistivity, carrier concentration, hall mobility를 분석하였고, UV-Vis를 이용하여 박막의 투과율을 분석하였으며, 이를 토대로 투명 전도막으로써 Ga-doped ZnO 박막의 응용 가능성을 평가하였다.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.24.1-24.1
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• 2009

The zinc oxide (ZnO) material as the II-VI compound semiconductor is useful in various fields of device applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), solar cells and gas sensors due to its wide direct band gap of 3.37eV and high exciton binding energy of 60meV at room temperature. In this study, the ZnO nanorods were deposited onto homogenous buffer layer/Si(100) substrates by a hydrothermal synthesis. The Effects of the buffer layer annealing and post annealing temperature on the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown by a hydrothermal synthesis were investigated. For the buffer layer annealing case, the annealed buffer layer surface became rougher with increasing of annealing temperature up to $750^{\circ}C$, while it was smoothed with more increasing of annealing temperature due to the evaporation of buffer layer. It was found that the roughest surface of buffer layer improved the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods. For the post annealing case, the hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods were annealed with various temperatures ranging from 450 to $900^{\circ}C$. Similarly in the buffer layer annealing case, the post annealing enhanced the properties of ZnO nanorods with increasing of annealing temperature up to $750^{\circ}C$. However, it was degraded with further increasing of annealing temperature due to the violent movement of atoms and evaporation. Finally, the buffer layer annealing and post annealing treatment could efficiently improve the properties of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods. The morphology and structural properties of ZnO nanorods grown by the hydrothermal synthesis were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The optical properties were also analyzed by photoluminescence (PL) measurement.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.28-32
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• 2009

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a promising material for power device applications due to its wide band gap (3.26 eV for 4H-SiC), high critical electric field and excellent thermal conductivity. The Schottky barrier diode is the representative high-power device that is currently available commercially. A field plate edge-terminated 4H-SiC was fabricated using a lift-off process for opening the Schottky contacts. In this case, Ni/Ti dual-metal contacts were unintentionally formed at the edge of the Schottky contacts and resulted in the degradation of the electrical properties of the diodes. The breakdown voltage and Schottky barrier height (SBH, ${\Phi}_B$) was 107 V and 0.67 eV, respectively. To form homogeneous single-metal Ni/4H-SiC Schottky contacts, a deposition and etching method was employed, and the electrical properties of the diodes were improved. The modified SBDs showed enhanced electrical properties, as witnessed by a breakdown voltage of 635 V, a Schottky barrier height of ${\Phi}_B$=1.48 eV, an ideality factor of n=1.04 (close to one), a forward voltage drop of $V_F$=1.6 V, a specific on resistance of $R_{on}=2.1m{\Omega}-cm^2$ and a power loss of $P_L=79.6Wcm^{-2}$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.805-810
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• 2012

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have wide range of application areas in transparent electrode for display devices, Transparent coating for solar energy heat mirrors, and electromagnetic wave shield. $SnO_2$ is intrinsically an n-type semiconductor due to oxygen deficiencies and has a high energy-band gap more than 3.5 eV. It is known as a transparent conducting oxide because of its low resistivity of $10^{-3}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and high transmittance over 90% in visible region. In this study, co-doping effects of Al and Y on the properties of $SnO_2$ were investigated. The addition of Y in $SnO_2$ was tried to create oxygen vacancies that increase the diffusivity of oxygen ions for the densification of $SnO_2$. The addition of Al was expected to increase the electron concentration. Once, we observed solubility limit of $SnO_2$ single-doped with Al and Y. $\{(x/2)Al_2O_3+(x/2)Y_2O_3\}-SnO_2$ was used for the source of Al and Y to prevent the evaporation of $Al_2O_3$ and for the charge compensation. And we observed the valence changes of aluminium oxide because generally reported of valence changes of aluminium oxide in Tin - Aluminium binary system. The electrical properties, solubility limit, densification and microstructure of $SnO_2$ co-doped with Al and Y will be discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.293-293
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• 2014

Over last decade InGaN alloy structures have become the one of the most promising materials among the numerous compound semiconductors for high efficiency light sources because of their direct band-gap and a wide spectral region (ultraviolet to infrared). The primary cause for the high quantum efficiency of the InGaN alloy in spite of high threading dislocation density caused by lattice misfit between GaN and sapphire substrate and severe built-in electric field of a few MV/cm due to the spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations is generally known as the strong exciton localization trapped by lattice-parameter-scale In-N clusters in the random InGaN alloy. Nonetheless, violet-emitting (390 nm) conventional low-In-content InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells (MQWs) show the degradation in internal quantum efficiency compared to blue-emitting (450 nm) MQWs owing higher In-content due to the less localization of carrier and the smaller band offset. We expected that an improvement of internal quantum efficiency in the violet region can be achieved by replacing the conventional low-In-content InGaN/GaN MQWs with ultra-thin, high-In-content (UTHI) InGaN/GaN MQWs because of better localization of carriers and smaller quantum-confined Stark effect (QCSE). We successfully obtain the UTHI InGaN/GaN MQWs grown via employing the GI technique by using the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. In this work, 1 the optical and structural properties of the violet-light-emitting UTHI InGaN/GaN MQWs grown by employing the GI technique in comparison with conventional low-In-content InGaN/GaN MQWs were investigated. Stronger localization of carriers and smaller QCSE were observed in UTHI MQWs as a result of enlarged potential fluctuation and thinner QW thickness compared to those in conventional low-In-content MQWs. We hope that these strong carrier localization and reduced QCSE can turn the UTHI InGaN/GaN MQWs into an attractive candidate for high efficient violet emitter. Detailed structural and optical characteristics of UTHI InGaN/GaN MQWs compared to the conventional InGaN/GaN MQWs will be given.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.189-189
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• 2012

Lead sulfide (PbS) nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) are promising materials for various optoelectronic devices, especially solar cells, because of their tunability of the optical band-gap controlled by adjusting the diameter of NQDs. PbS is a IV-VI semiconductor enabling infrared-absorption and it can be synthesized using solution process methods. A wide choice of the diameter of PbS NQDs is also a benefit to achieve the quantum confinement regime due to its large Bohr exciton radius (20 nm). To exploit these desirable properties, many research groups have intensively studied to apply for the photovoltaic devices. There are several essential requirements to fabricate the efficient NQDs-based solar cell. First of all, highly confined PbS QDs should be synthesized resulting in a narrow peak with a small full width-half maximum value at the first exciton transition observed in UV-Vis absorbance and photoluminescence spectra. In other words, the size-uniformity of NQDs ought to secure under 5%. Second, PbS NQDs should be assembled carefully in order to enhance the electronic coupling between adjacent NQDs by controlling the inter-QDs distance. Finally, appropriate structure for the photovoltaic device is the key issue to extract the photo-generated carriers from light-absorbing layer in solar cell. In this step, workfunction and Fermi energy difference could be precisely considered for Schottky and hetero junction device, respectively. In this presentation, we introduce the strategy to obtain high performance solar cell fabricated using PbS NQDs below the size of the Bohr radius. The PbS NQDs with various diameters were synthesized using methods established by Hines with a few modifications. PbS NQDs solids were assembled using layer-by-layer spin-coating method. Subsequent ligand-exchange was carried out using 1,2-ethanedithiol (EDT) to reduce inter-NQDs distance. Finally, Schottky junction solar cells were fabricated on ITO-coated glass and 150 nm-thick Al was deposited on the top of PbS NQDs solids as a top electrode using thermal evaporation technique. To evaluate the solar cell performance, current-voltage (I-V) measurement were performed under AM 1.5G solar spectrum at 1 sun intensity. As a result, we could achieve the power conversion efficiency of 3.33% at Schottky junction solar cell. This result indicates that high performance solar cell is successfully fabricated by optimizing the all steps as mentioned above in this work.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.219-224
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• 2022

CaF₂ single crystal has a large band gap (12 eV), and it is used for optical windows, prisms, and lenses due to its excellent transmittance in a wide wavelength range and low refractive index. Moreover, it is expected to be one of the materials for ultraviolet transmissive laser optical components. CaF₂ belongs to the fluoride compounds and has a face-centered cubic (FCC) structure with three sub-lattices. The representative method for CaF₂ single crystal growth is Czochralski, which method has the advantages of high production efficiency and the ability to make large crystals. In this study, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray rocking curves (XRC) measurement, and chemical etching were performed to analyze the crystallinity and defect density of the CaF₂ single crystals, grown by the Czochralski method. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and UV-VIS-NIR spectroscopy systems were used to investigate the optical properties of the CaF₂ crystal. The provability of various applications, including UV application, was systematically investigated with various analysis results.