• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.100-101
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• 2012

The plasma damage free and room temperature processedthin film deposition technology is essential for realization of various next generation organic microelectronic devices such as flexible AMOLED display, flexible OLED lighting, and organic photovoltaic cells because characteristics of fragile organic materials in the plasma process and low glass transition temperatures (Tg) of polymer substrate. In case of directly deposition of metal oxide thin films (including transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS)) on the organic layers, plasma damages against to the organic materials is fatal. This damage is believed to be originated mainly from high energy energetic particles during the sputtering process such as negative oxygen ions, reflected neutrals by reflection of plasma background gas at the target surface, sputtered atoms, bulk plasma ions, and secondary electrons. To solve this problem, we developed the NBAS (Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering) process as a plasma damage free and room temperature processed sputtering technology. As a result, electro-optical properties of NBAS processed ITO thin film showed resistivity of $4.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}m$ and high transmittance (>90% at 550 nm) with nano- crystalline structure at room temperature process. Furthermore, in the experiment result of directly deposition of TCO top anode on the inverted structure OLED cell, it is verified that NBAS TCO deposition process does not damages to the underlying organic layers. In case of deposition of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film on the plastic polymer substrate, the room temperature processed sputtering coating of high quality TCO thin film is required. During the sputtering process with higher density plasma, the energetic particles contribute self supplying of activation & crystallization energy without any additional heating and post-annealing and forminga high quality TCO thin film. However, negative oxygen ions which generated from sputteringtarget surface by electron attachment are accelerated to high energy by induced cathode self-bias. Thus the high energy negative oxygen ions can lead to critical physical bombardment damages to forming oxide thin film and this effect does not recover in room temperature process without post thermal annealing. To salve the inherent limitation of plasma sputtering, we have been developed the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process as the high quality oxide thin film deposition process at room temperature. The MFSS process is effectively eliminate or suppress the negative oxygen ions bombardment damage by the plasma limiter which composed permanent magnet array. As a result, electro-optical properties of MFSS processed ITO thin film (resistivity $3.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, transmittance 95% at 550 nm) have approachedthose of a high temperature DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) ITO thin film were. Also, AOS (a-IGZO) TFTs fabricated by MFSS process without higher temperature post annealing showed very comparable electrical performance with those by DMS process with $400^{\circ}C$ post annealing. They are important to note that the bombardment of a negative oxygen ion which is accelerated by dc self-bias during rf sputtering could degrade the electrical performance of ITO electrodes and a-IGZO TFTs. Finally, we found that reduction of damage from the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment drives improvement of crystalline structure in the ITO thin film and suppression of the sub-gab states in a-IGZO semiconductor thin film. For realization of organic flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates, gas barrier coatings are required to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency flexible AMOLEDs needs an extremely low water vapor transition rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$. The key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required (under ${\sim}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$) is the suppression of nano-sized defect sites and gas diffusion pathways among the grain boundaries. For formation of high quality single inorganic gas barrier layer, we developed high density nano-structured Al2O3 single gas barrier layer usinga NBAS process. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to a nano- crystalline phase with various grain sizes in a single inorganic thin film. As a result, the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film have improved order of magnitude compared with that of conventional $Al_2O_3$ layers made by the RF magnetron sputteringprocess under the same sputtering conditions; the WVTR of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film was about $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ by just single layer.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.52-59
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• 2007

In this paper, we analyzed and measured implant isolation characteristics for a 1.25 Gbps monolithic integrated hi-directional (M-BiDi) optoelectronic system-on-a-chip, which is a key component to constitute gigabit passive optical networks (PONs) for a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). Also, we derived an equivalent circuit of the implant structure under various DC bias conditions. The 1.25 Gbps M-BiDi transmit-receive SoC consists of a laser diode with a monitor photodiode as a transmitter and a digital photodiode as a digital data receiver on the same InP wafer According to IEEE 802.3ah and ITU-T G.983.3 standards, a receiver sensitivity of the digital receiver has to satisfy under -24 dBm @ BER=10-12. Therefore, the electrical crosstalk levels have to maintain less than -86 dB from DC to 3 GHz. From analysed and measured results of the implant structure, the M-BiDi SoC with the implant area of 20 mm width and more than 200 mm distance between the laser diode and monitor photodiode, and between the monitor photodiode and digital photodiode, satisfies the electrical crosstalk level. These implant characteristics can be used for the design and fabrication of an optoelectronic SoC design, and expended to a mixed-mode SoC field.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.219-232
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• 2013

This paper presents a microstrip antenna which recovers its resonant frequency and impedance shifted automatically by the approach of other objects such as hands. This can be used for telemetry sensor applications in the ultrahigh frequency(UHF) industrial, scientific, and medical(ISM) band. It is the key element that an frequency-reconfigurable antenna could be electrically controlled. This antenna is miniaturized by loading the folded plates at both radiating edges, and varactor diodes are installed between the radiating edges and the ground plane to control the resonant frequency by adjusting the DC bias asymmetrically. Using this voltage-controlled antenna and the micro controller peripheral circuits of reading the returned level, the antenna is designed and fabricated which recovers its resonant frequency and impedance automatically. Designed frequency auto recovering antenna is conformed to be recovered within a few seconds when the resonant frequency and impedance are shifted by the approach of other objects such as hand, metal plate, dielectric and so on.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.105-105
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• 2009

$ZrO_2$ is one of the most attractive high dielectric constant (high-k) materials. As integrated circuit device dimensions continue to be scaled down, high-k materials have been studied more to resolve the problems for replacing the EY31conventional $SiO_2$. $ZrO_2$ has many favorable properties as a high dielectric constant (k= 20~25), wide band gap (5~7 eV) as well as a close thermal expansion coefficient with Si that results in good thermal stability of the $ZrO_2/Si$ structure. In order to get fine-line patterns, plasma etching has been studied more in the fabrication of ultra large-scale integrated circuits. The relation between the etch characteristics of high-k dielectric materials and plasma properties is required to be studied more to match standard processing procedure with low damaged removal process. Due to the easy control of ion energy and flux, low ownership and simple structure of the inductively coupled plasma (ICP), we chose it for high-density plasma in our study. And the $BCl_3$ included in the gas due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of $BCl_xO_y$ compound In this study, the surface kinetic properties of $ZrO_2$ thin film was investigated in function of Ch addition to $BCl_3/Ar$ gas mixture ratio, RF power and DC-bias power based on substrate temperature. The figure 1 showed the etch rate of $ZrO_2$ thin film as function of gas mixing ratio of $Cl_2/BCl_3/Ar$ dependent on temperature. The chemical state of film was investigated using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The characteristics of the plasma were estimated using optical emission spectroscopy (OES). Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was used for elemental analysis of etched surface.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.17 no.7 s.110
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• pp.694-705
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• 2006

In this paper, the linear active phased array antenna system operated in Ku DBS band was designed and experimented. The antenna system was composed of sixteen radiating active channels and Wilkinson power combiners with 16-channel inputs, a stabilizing DC bias and phase control board. Electrical beams of the antenna system can be formed by controling the phase-states of 3-bit digital phase shifter inside each active channel by virtue of the phase control board. The amplitude and phase deviations measured between active channels were less than ${\pm}0.8dB$ and ${\pm}15^{\circ}$, respectively, and the noise figure of each active channel was measured less than 1.2 dB in the operating band. The measured performances of the overall antenna system showed the antenna gain of more than 23.07 dBi and the sidelobe level of less than -11.17 dBc, and the bore-sight cross-polarization level of less than -12.75 dBc in the operating band. Also, by phase-controlling active channels, the beam scan patterns at $10^{\circ},\;20^{\circ},\;30^{\circ}$ were measured, and the losses caused by the corresponding beam scanning were 1.1 dB, 2.5 dB and 3.6 dB from the measurements, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.642-647
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• 2007

We investigated dry etching of acrylic (PMMA) in $O_2/N_2$ plasmas using a multi-layers electrode reactive ion etching (RIE) system. The multi-layers electrode RIE system had an electrode (or a chuck) consisted of 4 individual layers in a series. The diameter of the electrodes was 150 mm. The etch process parameters we studied were both applied RIE chuck power on the electrodes and % $O_2$ composition in the $N_2/O_2$ plasma mixtures. In details, the RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W.% $O_2$ in the plasmas was varied from 0 to 100% at the fixed total gas flow rates of 20 sccm. The etch results of acrylic in the multilayers electrode RIE system were characterized in terms of negatively induced dc bias on the electrode, etch rates and RMS surface roughness. Etch rate of acrylic was increased more than twice from about $0.2{\mu}m/min$ to over $0.4{\mu}m/min$ when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W. 1 sigma uniformity of etch rate variation of acrylic on the 4 layers electrode was slightly increased from 2.3 to 3.2% when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W at the fixed etch condition of 16 sccm $O_2/4\;sccm\;N_2$ gas flow and 100 mTorr chamber pressure. Surface morphology was also investigated using both a surface profilometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The RMS roughness of etched acrylic surface was strongly affected by % $O_2$ composition in the $O_2/N_2$ plasmas. However, RIE chuck power changes hardly affected the roughness results in the range of 75-200 W. During etching experiment, Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) data was taken and we found both $N_2$ peak (354.27 nm) and $O_2$ peak (777.54 nm). The preliminarily overall results showed that the multi-layers electrode concept could be successfully utilized for high volume reactive ion etching of acrylic in the future.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.718-726
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• 2009

The objective of this study was to develop and validate secondary models that can predict growth parameters of L. monocytogenes Scott A as a function of concentrations (0-3%) of a commercial potassium lactate (PL) and sodium diacetate (SDA) mixture, pH (5.5-7.0), and temperature (4-37DC). A total of 120 growth curves were fitted to the Baranyi primary model that directly estimates lag time (LT) and specific growth rate (SGR). The effects of the variables on L. monocytogenes Scott A growth kinetics were modeled by response surface analysis using quadratic and cubic polynomial models of the natural logarithm transformation of both LT and SGR. Model performance was evaluated with dependent data and independent data using the prediction bias ($B_f$) and accuracy factors ($A_f$) as well as the acceptable prediction zone method [percentage of relative errors (%RE)]. Comparison of predicted versus observed values of SGR indicated that the cubic model fits better than the quadratic model, particularly at 4 and $10^{\circ}C$. The $B_f$and $A_f$for independent SGR were 1.00 and 1.08 for the cubic model and 1.08 and 1.16 for the quadratic model, respectively. For cubic and quadratic models, the %REs for the independent SGR data were 92.6 and 85.7, respectively. Both quadratic and cubic polynomial models for SGR and LT provided acceptable predictions of L. monocytogenes Scott A growth in the matrix of conditions described in the present study. Model performance can be more accurately evaluated with $B_f$and $A_f$and % RE together.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.471-482
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• 2015

In this paper, design and implementation of the 94 GHz Gunn oscillator and the evaluation of the maximum power of the Gunn diode used in the oscillator are presented. The 94 GHz Gunn oscillator is used InP Gunn diode and designed employing a WR-10 waveguide. The designed oscillator is fabricated through machining and its performance is measured. The fabricated oscillator shows an oscillation frequency of 95 GHz, output power of 12.64 dBm, and phase noise of -92.7 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency. To evaluation the maximum power of the InP Gunn diode used in oscillator, the oscillator structure is modified to a structure having a diaphram. The height of thick diaphram which is used in the oscillator is varied. As a result, an oscillator has several different load impedances, which makes it possible to plot $G_L-V^2$ plot at the post plane. Using the $G_L-V^2$ plot, the maximum power of used Gunn diode including post is computed to be 16.8 dBm. Furthermore using the shorted and zero bias Gunn diode, the post loss used for DC biasing can be computed. Using the two losses, The maximum power of a InP Gunn diode is computed to be 18.55 dBm at 95 GHz. This result is close to a datasheet.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.114-124
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• 2011

In this paper, we present a 2 GHz compact analog phase shifter with linear phase-tune characteristic. The compact phase shifter was designed base on a lumped all pass network and implemented using a ceramic substrate fabricated with thin-film technique. For a linear phase-tune characteristic, a capacitance of the varactor diode for a tuning voltage was linearized by connecting series capacitor and subsequently produced an almost linear capacitance change. The inductor and bias circuit in the all pass network was implemented using a spiral inductors for small size, which results in the size reduction to $4\;mm{\times}4\;mm$. In order to measure the phase shifter using the probe station, two CPW pads are included at the input and output. The fabricated phase shifter showed an insertion loss of about 4.2~4.7 dB at 2 GHz band and a total $79^{\circ}$ phase change for DC control voltage from 0 to 5 V, and showed linear phase-tune characteristic as expected in the design.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.145-145
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• 2008

High-k materials have been paid much more attention for their characteristics with high permittivity to reduce the leakage current through the scaled gate oxide. Among the high-k materials, $ZrO_2$ is one of the most attractive ones combing such favorable properties as a high dielectric constant (k= 20 ~ 25), wide band gap (5 ~ 7 eV) as well as a close thermal expansion coefficient with Si that results in good thermal stability of the $ZrO_2$/Si structure. During the etching process, plasma etching has been widely used to define fine-line patterns, selectively remove materials over topography, planarize surfaces, and trip photoresist. About the high-k materials etching, the relation between the etch characteristics of high-k dielectric materials and plasma properties is required to be studied more to match standard processing procedure with low damaged removal process. Among several etching techniques, we chose the inductively coupled plasma (ICP) for high-density plasma, easy control of ion energy and flux, low ownership and simple structure. And the $BCl_3$ was included in the gas due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of $BCl_xO_y$ compounds. During the etching process, the wafer surface temperature is an important parameter, until now, there is less study on temperature parameter. In this study, the etch mechanism of $ZrO_2$ thin film was investigated in function of $Cl_2$ addition to $BCl_3$/Ar gas mixture ratio, RF power and DC-bias power based on substrate temperature increased from $10^{\circ}C$ to $80^{\circ}C$. The variations of relative volume densities for the particles were measured with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface imagination was measured by scanning emission spectroscope (SEM). The chemical state of film was investigated using energy dispersive X-ray (EDX).