• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.29A no.8
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• pp.49-55
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• 1992

We Have investigated the properties of the titanium nitrite films widely used in VLSI devices as diffusion barrier in Al-based metallization. TiN films were formed by reactive sputtering from Ti target in Ar-N$_2$ mixtures, varying deposition parameters such as N$_2$ partial pressure, substrate temperature, power, and total pressure. All the samples received the heat treatment at 45$0^{\circ}C$ for 30 min. The resulting films are characterized by mechanical stylus($\alpha$-step), x-ray diffraction(XRD), scanning electron microscopy(SEM), and four point probe method. The Tin film properties strongly depend on the deposition condition. The stoichiometry and Ti deposition rate are critically affected by nitrogen partial pressure, and the resistivity, in particular, is dependent on both the substrate temperature and sputtering power.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.85-89
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• 2012

Transparent conductive ZnO/Ag/ZnO (ZAZ) multilayer films were deposited by Radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering and direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering. The effects of post deposition vacuum annealing temperature on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the ZAZ multilayer films were investigated. The thickness of ZAZ films is kept constant at ZnO 50 nm/Ag 5nm/ZnO 45 nm, while the vacuum annealing temperatures were varied from 200 and $400^{\circ}C$, respectively. As-deposited ZAZ films exhibit a sheet resistance of $6.1{\Omega}/{\Box}$ and optical transmittance of 72.7%. By increasing annealing temperature to $200^{\circ}C$, the resistivity decreased to as low as $5.3{\Omega}/{\Box}$ and optical transmittance also increased to as high as 82.1%. Post-deposition annealing of ZAZ multilayer films lead to considerably lower electrical resistivity and higher optical transparency, simultaneously by increased crystallization of the films.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.243-248
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• 2004

A palladium-nikel(Pd-Ni) alloy composite membrane has been fabricated on microporous nickel support formed with nickel powder. Plasma surface treatment process is introduced as pre-treatment process instead of HCI activation. Pd coating layer was prepared by dc magnetron sputtering deposition after $H_2$ plasma surface treatment. Palladium-nickel alloy composite layer had a fairly uniform and dense surface morphology. The membrane was characterized by permeation experiments with hydrogen and nitrogen gases at temperature of 773 K and pressure of 2.2psi. The hydrogen permeance was 6 ml/minㆍ$\textrm{cm}^2$ㆍatm and the selectivity was 120 for hydrogen/nitrogen($H_2$/$N_2$) mixing gases at 773 K.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.226-230
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• 2005

This paper describes the photocatalytic degradation properties by oxygen partial pressure for TiO$_2$ thin films fabricated by dc magnetron reactive sputtering. And the structural, chemical, optical and photocatalytic properties were investigated at various analysis system. When TiO$_2$ thin film was made at deposition time of 120 min and Ar:O$_2$ ratio of 60:40, the best properties were obtained. That results were as follows: thickness; 360∼370 nm, gram size; 40 nm, optical energy band gap; 3.4 eV and Benzene conversion in the photocatalytic degradation; 11 %.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.96-97
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• 2012

In nitride and oxide film deposition, sputtered metals react with nitrogen or oxygen gas in a vacuum chamber to form metal nitride or oxide films on a substrate. The physical properties of sputtered films (metals, oxides, and nitrides) are strongly influenced by magnetron plasma density during the deposition process. Typical target power densities on the magnetron during the deposition process are ~ (5-30) W/cm2, which gives a relatively low plasma density. The main challenge in reactive sputtering is the ability to generate a stable, arc free discharge at high plasma densities. Arcs occur due to formation of an insulating layer on the target surface caused by the re-deposition effect. One current method of generating an arc free discharge is to use the commercially available Pinnacle Plus+ Pulsed DC plasma generator manufactured by Advanced Energy Inc. This plasma generator uses a positive voltage pulse between negative pulses to attract electrons and discharge the target surface, thus preventing arc formation. However, this method can only generate low density plasma and therefore cannot allow full control of film properties. Also, after long runs ~ (1-3) hours, depends on duty cycle the stability of the reactive process is reduced due to increased probability of arc formation. Between 1995 and 1999, a new way of magnetron sputtering called HIPIMS (highly ionized pulse impulse magnetron sputtering) was developed. The main idea of this approach is to apply short ${\sim}(50-100){\mu}s$ high power pulses with a target power densities during the pulse between ~ (1-3) kW/cm2. These high power pulses generate high-density magnetron plasma that can significantly improve and control film properties. From the beginning, HIPIMS method has been applied to reactive sputtering processes for deposition of conductive and nonconductive films. However, commercially available HIPIMS plasma generators have not been able to create a stable, arc-free discharge in most reactive magnetron sputtering processes. HIPIMS plasma generators have been successfully used in reactive sputtering of nitrides for hard coating applications and for Al2O3 films. But until now there has been no HIPIMS data presented on reactive sputtering in cluster tools for semiconductors and MEMs applications. In this presentation, a new method of generating an arc free discharge for reactive HIPIMS using the new Cyprium plasma generator from Zpulser LLC will be introduced. Data (or evidence) will be presented showing that arc formation in reactive HIPIMS can be controlled without applying a positive voltage pulse between high power pulses. Arc-free reactive HIPIMS processes for sputtering AlN, TiO2, TiN and Si3N4 on the Applied Materials ENDURA 200 mm cluster tool will be presented. A direct comparison of the properties of films sputtered with the Advanced Energy Pinnacle Plus + plasma generator and the Zpulser Cyprium plasma generator will be presented.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.34-37
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• 2000

We prepared ZnO thin film with Facing Targets Sputtering system that can deposit thin film in plasma-free situation and change the deposition condition in wide range. And prepared thin film's c-axis orientation and grain size were analyzed by XRD (x-ray diffractometer). In the results, we suggest that FTS system is very suitable to preparing high quality ZnO thin film with good c-axis orientation.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.95-96
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• 2006

ITO thin film is generally fabricated by various methods such as spray, CVD, evaporation, electron gun deposition, direct current electroplating, high frequency sputtering, and reactive DC sputtering. However, some problems such as peaks, bumps, large particles, and pin-holes on the surface of ITO thin film were reported, which caused the destruction of color quality, the reduction of device life time, and short-circuit. Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process is one of the suitable solutions which could solve the problems.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.340-351
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• 1995

Electrical, physical and optical properties of Aluminum(Al), Copper(Cu) thin films were investigated in order to establish the optimum sputtering parameters in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel applications. DC-magnetron sputtered film on coming 7059 samples were fabricated with variations of deposition power densities, deposition pressures and substrate temperatures. Low resistivity films(AI;2.80 .mu..ohm.-cm, Cu:1.84 .mu..ohm-cm),which lower than the reported values, were obtained under sputtering parameters of power density(250W), substrate temperature(450-530.deg. C) and 5*10$\^$-3/ Torr deposition pressure. Expected columnar growth and stable grain growth of both films was observed through the Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) micrographs. Dependency of the applicable defect-free film density upon depositon power and temperature was also characterized. Not too noticable variations in X-ray diffraction patterns were remarked under the alterations of sputtering parameters. High optical reflectivities of Al, Cu films, approximately 70-90 %, showed high degree of surface flatness.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.3C no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 2003

Structural properties of Cu-Ni alloy films, such as preferred orientation, crystallite size, in-ter-planar spacing, cross-sectional morphology, and electrical resistivity, are investigated in terms of tar-get configurations that are used in the film deposition by means of magnetron co-sputtering. Two different target configurations are considered in this study: a dual-type configuration in which two separate tar-gets (Cu and Ni) and different bias types (RF and DC) are used and a Ni-on-Cu type configuration in which Ni chips are attached to a Cu target. The dual-type configuration appears to have some advantages over the Ni-on-Cu type regarding the accurate control of atomic composition of the deposited Cu-Ni alloy. However, the dual-type-produced film exhibits a porous and columnar structure, the relatively large internal stress, and the high electrical resistivity, which are mainly due to the relatively low mobility of adatoms. The affects of thermal treatment and deposition conditions on the structural and electrical properties of dual-type Cu-Ni films are also discussed.