• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Laser Processing Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.55-58
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• 2002

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.935-942
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• 2002

Gallium-doped ZnO (GZO) films were deposited on soda-lime glass substrate without heating using Ne, Ar, or Kr gas. Electrical properties of GZO films deposited at various total gas pressures were investigated for the film positions corresponding to the erosion region (region B) and outside the erosion region (region A) of the target. Region B showed high resistivity, which was attributed to the decrease in carrier density and Hall mobility, compared to region A. GZO films deposited using Ne gas showed the degradation in resistivity and crystallinity, whereas, GZO films deposited using Kr gas showed the improvement in resistivity and crystallinity. This degradation in film properties could be attributed to the film damage caused by the bombardment of high-energy particles. Especially, the energies of recoiled neutral atoms ($Ne^0,\;Ar^0,\;Kr^0$) calculated by Monte Carlo simulation corresponded to experimental results.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.438-444
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• 2000

We report the effects of etch process parameters on the ohmic contact formation in the plasma etching of GaN. Planar inductively coupled plasma system with $CH_4/H_2/Ar$gas chemistry has been used as etch reactor. The contact resistance and the specific contact resistance have been investigated using transfer length method as a function of RF bias power and %Ar gas concentration in total flow rate. AES(Auger electron spectroscopy) analysis revealed that the etched GaN has nonstoichiometric Ga rich surface and was contaminated by carbon and oxygen. Especially large amount of carbon was detected at the sample etched for high bias power (or voltage) condition, where severe degradation of contact resistance was occurred. We achieved the low ohmic contact of $2.4{\times}10^{-3} {\Omega}cm^2$ specific contact resistance at the input power 400 W, RF bias power 150 W, and working pressure 10mTorr with 10 sccm $CH_4$, 15 sccm H2, 5 sccm Ar gas composition.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.164-168
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• 2011

Etch selectivities of mask materials to ZnO and $SnO_2$ films were studied in $BCl_3$/Ar and $CF_4$/Ar inductively coupled plasmas for fabrication of nanostructure-based gas sensing layer with high aspect ratios. In $25BCl_3$/10Ar ICP discharges, selectivities of 5.1~6.1 were obtained for ZnO over Ni while no practical selectivity was obtained for ZnO over Al. High selectivities of 7 ~ 17 for ZnO over Ni were produced in $25CF_4$/10Ar mixtures. $SnO_2$ showed much higher etch rates than Ni and a maximum selectivity of 67 was observed for $SnO_2$ over Ni.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.167-167
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• 2011

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is one of the prospective semiconductor memories for next generation. It has the excellent features including nonvolatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage, and high storage density. MRAM consists of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) stack and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The MTJ stack is composed of various magnetic materials, metals, and a tunneling barrier layer. For the successful realization of high density MRAM, the etching process of magnetic materials should be developed. Among various magnetic materials, FePt has been used for pinned layer of MTJ stack. The previous etch study of FePt magnetic thin films was carried out using $CH_4/O_2/NH_3$. It reported only the etch characteristics with respect to the variation of RF bias powers. In this study, the etch characteristics of FePt thin films have been investigated using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher in various etch chemistries containing $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4/O_2/Ar$ gas mixes. TiN thin film was employed as a hard mask. FePt thin films are etched by varying the gas concentration. The etch characteristics have been investigated in terms of etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile. Furthermore, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is applied to elucidate the etch mechanism of FePt thin films in $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4/O_2/Ar$ chemistries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.387-387
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• 2013

Currently, the flash memory and the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) have been used in a variety of applications. However, the downsizing of devices and the increasing density of recording medias are now in progress. So there are many demands for development of new semiconductor memory for next generation. Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is one of the prospective semiconductor memories with excellent features including non-volatility, fast access time, unlimited read/write endurance, low operating voltage, and high storage density. MRAM is composed of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) stack and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The MTJ stack consists of various magnetic materials, metals, and a tunneling barrier layer. Recently, MgO thin films have attracted a great attention as the prominent candidates for a tunneling barrier layer in the MTJ stack instead of the conventional Al2O3 films, because it has low Gibbs energy, low dielectric constant and high tunneling magnetoresistance value. For the successful etching of high density MRAM, the etching characteristics of MgO thin films as a tunneling barrier layer should be developed. In this study, the etch characteristics of MgO thin films have been investigated in various gas mixes using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICPRIE). The Cl2/Ar, CH3OH/Ar, and CH4/Ar gas mix were employed to find an optimized etching gas for MgO thin film etching. TiN thin films were employed as a hard mask to increase the etch selectivity. The etch rates were obtained using surface profilometer and etch profiles were observed by using the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM).

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.169-175
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• 2020

Silicon nitride thin films are deposited by RF (13.57 MHz) magnetron sputtering process using a Si (99.999 %) target and with different ratios of Ar/N₂ sputtering gas mixture. Corning G type glass is used as substrate. The vacuum atmosphere, RF source power, deposit time and temperature of substrate of the sputtering process are maintained consistently at 2 ~ 3 × 10^-3 torr, 30 sccm, 100 watt, 20 min. and room temperature, respectively. Cross sectional views and surface morphology of the deposited thin films are observed by field emission scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The hardness values are determined by nano-indentation measurement. The thickness of the deposited films is approximately within the range of 88 nm ~ 200 nm. As the amount of N₂ gas in the Ar:N₂ gas mixture increases, the thickness of the films decreases. AFM observation reveals that film deposited at high Ar:N₂ gas ratio and large amount of N₂ gas has a very irregular surface morphology, even though it has a low RMS value. The hardness value of the deposited films made with ratio of Ar:N₂=9:1 display the highest value. The XPS spectrum indicates that the deposited film is assigned to non-stoichiometric silicon nitride and the transmittance of the glass with deposited SiO₂-Si_xN_y thin film is satisfactory at 97 %.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.93-96
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• 2009

The Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films were deposited on a glass substrate by RF magnetron sputtering in pure Ar and $Ar+H_2$ gas ambient at temperature of $100^{\circ}C$ and annealed in hydrogen ambient at the temperature range from 100 to 300 $^{\circ}C$, respectively. It was found that either the addition of hydrogen to the sputtering gas or the annealing treatment effectively reduced the resistivity of the AZO films. When the AZO films were annealed at the temperature of 300 $^{\circ}C$ for lhr in a hydrogen atmosphere, the resistivity decreased from $2.60{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}cm$ to $8.42{\times}l0^{-4}\;{\Omega}cm$ for the film deposited in pure Ar gas ambient. Under the same annealing conditions of temperature and hydrogen ambient, the resistivity of AZO films deposited in the $Ar+H_2$ gas mixture decreased from $8.22{\times}l0^{-4}\;{\Omega}cm$ to $4.25{\times}l0^{-4}\;{\Omega}cm$. The lowest resistivity of $4.25{\times}l0^{-4}\;{\Omega}cm$ was obtained by adding hydrogen gas to the deposition and annealing process. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of all films showed preferable growth orientation of (002) plane. The average transmittance is above 85 % and in the range of 400-1000 nm for all films.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.16-21
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• 2004

The nano-sized Co particles were successfully synthesized by chemical vapor condensation (CVC) process using the precursor of cobalt carbonyl ($Co_2(CO)_8$). The influence of carrier gases on the microstructure and magnetic properties of nanoparticles was investigated by means of XRD, TEM, XPS and VSM. The Co nano-particles with different phases and shapes were synthesized with a change of carrier gas : long string morphologies with coexistence of fcc and hcp structure in Ar carrier gas condition; finer Co core in a mass of cobalt oxide with only fcc structure in He; rod type cobalt oxide phase in Ar＋6vol％$O_2$. The saturation magnetization and coercivity was lower in Co nanoparticles synthesized in He carrier gas, due to their finer size.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-6
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• 2007

This study includes the effects of shielding gas types and flow rate on Nd:YAG Laser weldability of sintered material. The types of shielding gas were evaluated for He, Ar and N2. Bending strength, porosity rate, hardness and aspect ratio testing of laser weld are carried out to evaluated the weldability. As a results, Ar gas was showed the best welding strength even it has the most porosity content on weld metal, and depend on increases the gas flow rate, it was not only got deeper penetration depth but also showed higher bending strength. Therefore we could know that bending strength is not only affect the porosity content but also melting area.