• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.516-521
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• 2001

Dry etching of Si wafer and $SiO_2$ layers was performed using He/Cl$_2$ mixture plasma by diode-type reactive ion etcher (RIE) system. For Si etching, the Cl molecules react with the Si molecules on the surface and become chemically stable, indicating that the reactants need energetic ion bombardment. During the ion assisted desorption, energetic ions would damage the photoresist (PR) and produce the bad etch Si-profile. Moreover, we have examined the characteristics of the Cl-Si reaction system, and developed the new fabrication procedures with a $Cl_2$/He mixture for Si and $SiO_2$-etching. The developed novel fabrication procedure allows the RIE to be unexpensive and useful a Si deep etching system. Since the etch rate was proved to increase linearly with fHe and the selectivity of Si to $SiO_2$ etch rate was observed to be inversely proportional to fHe.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1005-1008
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• 2009

In this study, adaptively coupled plasma (ACP) source was used for dry etching of $Al_2O_3$ thin film. During the etching process, the wafer surface temperature is an important parameter to influent the etching characteristics. Therefore, the experiments were carried out in ACP to measuring the etch rate, the selectivities of $Al_2O_3$ thin film to mask materials and the etch profile as functions of $Cl_2$/Ar gas ratio and substrate temperature. The highest etch rate of $Al_2O_3$ was 65.4 nm/min at 75% of $Cl_2/(Cl_2+Ar)$ gas mixing ratio. The etched profile was characterized using field effect scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The chemical states of $Al_2O_3$ thin film surfaces were investigated with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.152-155
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• 2011

Even though nano-scale materials were very advantageous for various applications, there are still problems to be solved such as the stabilization of surface state and realization of low contact resistances between a semiconducting nanowire and electrodes in nano-electronics. It is well known that the effects of contacts barrier between nano-channel and metal electrodes were dominant in carrier transportation in individual nano-electronics. In this report, it was investigated the electrical properties of GaN nanorod devices after chemical etching and rapid thermal annealing for making good contacts. After KOH wet-etching of the contact area the devices showed better electrical performance compared with non-treated GaN individual devices but still didn't have linear voltage-current characteristics. The shape of voltage-current properties of GaN devices were improved remarkably after rapid thermal annealing as showing Ohmic behaviors with further bigger conductivities. Even though chemical etching of the nanorod surfaces could cause scattering of carriers, in here it was shown that the most important and dominant factor in carrier transport of nano-electronics was realization of low contact barrier between nano-channel and metal electrodes surely.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.616-621
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• 2009

Reduction of optical losses in crystalline silicon solar cells by surface modification is one of the most important issues of silicon photovoltaics. Porous Si layers on the front surface of textured Si substrates have been investigated with the aim of improving the optical losses of the solar cells, because an anti-reflection coating(ARC) and a surface passivation can be obtained simultaneously in one process. We have demonstrated the feasibility of a very efficient porous Si ARC layer, prepared by a simple, cost effective, electrochemical etching method. Silicon p-type CZ (100) oriented wafers were textured by anisotropic etching in sodium carbonate solution. Then, the porous Si layers were formed by electrochemical etching in HF solutions. After that, the properties of porous Si in terms of morphology, structure and reflectance are summarized. The structure of porous Si layers was investigated with SEM. The formation of a nanoporous Si layer about 100nm thick on the textured silicon wafer result in a reflectance lower than 5% in the wavelength region from 500 to 900nm. Such a surface modification allows improving the Si solar cell characteristics. An efficiency of 13.4% is achieved on a monocrystalline silicon solar cell using the electrochemical technique.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.996-1002
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• 2000

Ferroelectric (Ba, Sr) TiO$_3$(BST) thin films have attracted much attention for use in new capacitor materials of dynamic random access memories (DRAMs). In order to apply BST to the DRAMs, the etching process for BST thin film with high etch rate and vertical profile must be developed. However, the former studies have the problem of low etch rate. In this study, in order to increase the etch rate, BST thin films were etched with a magnetically enhanced inductively coupled plasma(MEICP) that have much higher plasma density than RIE (reactive ion etching) and ICP (inductively coupled plasma). Experiment was done by varying the etching parameters such as CF$_4$/(CF$_4$+Ar) gas mixing ratio, rf power, dc bias voltage and chamber pressure. The maximum etch rate of the BST films was 170nm/min under CF$_4$/CF$_4$+Ar) of 0.1, 600 W/-350 V and 5 mTorr. The selectivities of BST to Pt and PR were 0.6 and 0.7, respectively. Chemical reaction and residue of the etched surface were investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS).

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.27.2-27.2
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• 2010

In recent years, there is a strong requirement of low cost, stable microelectro mechanical systems (MEMS) for resonators, microswitches and sensors. Most of these devices consist of freely suspended microcantilevers, which are usually made by the etching of some sacrificial materials. Herein, we have attempted to use Si nanowires, inherited from the parent Si wafer, as a sacrificial material due to its porosity, low cost and ease of fabrication. Prior to the fabrication of the Si nanowires silver nanoparticles were continuously formed on the surface of Si wafer. Vertically aligned Si nanowires were fabricated from the parent Si wafers by aqueous chemical route at $50^{\circ}C$. Afterwards, the morphological and structural characteristics of the Si nanowires were investigated. The morphology of nanowires was strongly modulated by the resistivity of the parent wafer. The 3-step etching of nanowires in diluted KOH solution was carried out at room temperature in order to control the fast etching. A layer of $Si_3N_4$ (300 nm) was used for the selective fabrication of nanowires. Finally, a freely suspended bridge of zinc oxide (ZnO) was fabricated after the removal of nanowires from the parent wafer. At present, we believe that this technique may provide a platform for the inexpensive fabrication of futuristic MEMS.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.316-321
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• 2013

The electrical properties and surface morphology changes of a silicon wafer as a function of the HF concentration as the wafer is etched were studied. The HF concentrations were 28, 30, 32, 34, and 36 wt%. The surface morphology changes of the silicon wafer were measured by an SEM ($80^{\circ}$ tilted at ${\times}200$) and the resistivity was measured by assessing the surface resistance using a four-point probe method. The etching rate increased as the HF concentration increased. The maximum etching rate 27.31 ${\mu}m/min$ was achieved at an HF concentration of 36 wt%. A concave wave formed on the wafer after the wet etching process. The size of the wave was largest and the resistivity reached 7.54 $ohm{\cdot}cm$ at an 30 wt% of HF concentration. At an HF concentration of 30 wt%, therefore, a silicon wafer should have good joining strength with a metal backing as well as good electrical properties.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.307-312
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• 2014

We present a full finite element analysis for plasma discharge in etching process of semiconductor circuit. The charge transport equations of hydrodynamic diffusion-drift model and the electric field equation were numerically solved in a fully coupled system by using a standard finite element procedure for transient analysis. The proposed method was applied to a real plasma reactor in order to characterize the plasma sheath that is closely related to the yield of the etching process. Throughout the plasma discharge analysis, the base electrode of reactor was tested and modified for improving the uniformity around the wafer edge. The experiment and numerical results were examined along with SEM data of etching quality. The feasibility and usefulness of the proposed method was shown by both numerical and experimental results.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.6-12
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• 2000

In this study, molybdenum thin films were etched with Cl\ulcorner/(Cl\ulcorner+SF\ulcorner) gas mixing ratio in an magneti-cally enhanced reactive ion etching(MERIE) by the etching parameters such as rf power of 250 watts, chamber pressure of 100 mTorr and B-field of 30 gauss. The etch rate was 150nm/min under Cl\ulcorner/(Cl\ulcorner+SF\ulcorner) gas mixing ratio of 0.25. At this time, the selectivity of Mo to SiO\ulcorner, photoresist were respectively 0.94, 0.05. The surface reaction of the etched Mo thin films was investigated with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). It was analyzed that Mo peaks was mainly observed in Mo-O bonds formed MoO\ulcorner compounds and F was detected in Mo-F and O-F bonds. Cl peaks were detected by the peak of Cl 2p\ulcorner in Cl-Mo bonds of MoCl\ulcorner or MoO\ulcornerCl\ulcorner formulas. Almost all of both Cl and S atoms had been com-bined with Mo, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.338-339
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• 2005

The wider surface of the aluminum foil, electrochemically very important and it is necessary to increase the surface area. A study has been made of the fabrication condition for etching cube texture of high purity aluminium foil and of electrochemical etching of the aluminium foil. In the present work, it is shown there exists a relation between the influence of the pre-treatment time in the NaOH & HCI solution and $H_2SO_4$ concentration in the conversion solution. Also effect of temperature during AC etching was also studied. Result of the etched aluminum film is shown in the typical SEM images. Its electrochemical characteristics were investigated by cyclic voltammetry. And effects of current density and frequency is also reported. Cyclic voltammogram showed that the protective oxide film was formedon the inner surfaces of etch pit. the frequency influence resistance of oxide film in AC etching.