• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.364-369
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• 2004

The barrier and optical properties of AlO$_{x}$ thin films on polycarbonate deposited by Reactive Ion Beam Sputtering (RIBS) were investigated at different oxygen partial pressure. We measured the deposition rate of AlO$_{x}$ thin films. As the oxygen partial pres-sure increased, the deposition rate increased then decreased. The changes of deposition rate are associated with the properties of deposited films. The properties of deposited AlO$_{x}$ thin films were studied using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Scan-ning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Optimum deposition parameters were found for fabricat-ing aluminum oxide thin films with high optical transparency for visible light and low Oxygen Transmission Rate (OTR). The optical transmittance of AlO$_{x}$ thin film deposited on polycarbonate (PC) showed the same value of bare PC.bare PC.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.83-87
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• 2017

This study was conducted to determine types of oxygen transmission rate (OTR) films suitable for modified atmosphere (MA) storage treatment of strawberries (cv. 'Maehyang') for export and examination related changes in quality of strawberries during simulated shipping distribution conditions ($2^{\circ}C$ for $10days{\sim}8^{\circ}C$ for 11 days). Strawberries were packed by 1,300, 10,000, 20,000, and $30,000cc/m^2{\cdot}day{\cdot}atm$ OTR films for MA storage treatment and perforated film as the control for MAP. Fresh weight loss rate was less than 0.5% in OTR films except for the perforated film. Carbon dioxide and oxygen content in packages prevailed in permissible range for strawberries under recommended CA/MA conditions (i.e., $CO_2$: 15~20%, $O_2$: 5~10%) at 10,000 cc, 20,000 cc, and 30,000 cc OTR films. Ethylene content in OTR films did not reveal significant differences during storage. The 1,300 cc OTR film revealed highest off-flavor and lowest fungal incidence rate by sensory evaluation. The firmness, soluble solids, and visual quality were preserved the highest at 10,000 cc OTR film. In conclusion, 10,000 cc OTR film preserved the highest quality and extended shelf-life by 13 days if compared with conventional distribution conditions.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2021

In order to develop an integrated heat dissipating material and gas barrier film for electronics, new polymer was designed and synthesized for preparing composites containing hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) filler. Depending on the size and content of the hBN filler, both thermal conductivity and oxygen transmission rate can be adjusted. The composite achieved a high thermal conductivity of 28.0 W·m-1·K-1 at most and the oxygen transmission rate was decreased by 62% compared to that of the filler free matrix. Effective filler aspect ratios could be estimated by comparing thermal conductivity and oxygen transmission rate with values predicted by theoretical models. Discrepancy on the aspect ratios extracted from thermal conductivity and oxygen transmission rate comparisons was also discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.210-210
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• 2012

Gas barrier coating from dense thin film deposition has been one of the important applications such as food-packaging and organic display. Especially for food-packaging, plastic container has been widely used due to its low price and high through-put in mass production. However, the plastic container with low surface energy like polypropylene (PP) has been limited to apply gas barrier coating. That is because a gas barrier coating could not adhere to PP due to its too low surface energy and high porosity of PP. In this research, we applied carbon coating consisting of Si and O as an interlayer between silicon oxide (SiOx) and PP. A carbon layer was found to provide better adhesion, which was experimentally proved by oxygen transmission rate (OTR) and SEM images. However, we also found that there is a limitation in the maximum thickness of a carbon layer and SiOx film due to their high stress level. For this conflict, we obtain the optimal thickness of a carbon layer and SiOx film showing optimal gas barrier property.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.431-431
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• 2013

Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays are required for future devices. It is possible that plastic substrates are instead of glass substrates. But the plastic substrates are permeable to moisture and oxygen. This weak point can cause the degradation of fabricated flexible devices; therefore, encapsulation process for flexible substrate is needed to protect organic devices from moisture and oxygen. Y.G. Lee et al.(2009) [1] reported organic and inorganic multilayer structure as an encapsulation barrier for enhanced reliability and life-time.Flowable Oxide process is a low-temperature process which shows the excellent gap-fill characteristics and high deposition rate. Besides, planarization is expected by covering dust smoothly on the substrate surface. So, in this research, Bi-layer structured is used for encapsulation: Flowable Oxide Thin film by PECVD process and Al2O3 thin film by ALD process. The samples were analyzed by water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) using the Calcium test and film cross section images were obtained by FE-SEM.

• 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 Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1028-1032
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• 2009

In this study, the influences of silicon-based gas barrier films fabricated by using a facing target sputtering(FTS) system on the gas permeability for flexible displays have been investigated. Under these optimum conditions on the $SiO_x$ film with oxygen concentration($O_2/Ar+O_2$) of 3.3% and the $SiO_xN_y$ film with nitrogen concentration($N_2/Ar+O_2+N_2$) of 30% deposited by the FTS system, it was found that the films were grown about 4 times higher deposition rate than that of the conventional sputtering system and showed high transmittance about 85% in the visible light range. Particularly, the polyethylene naphthalate(PEN) substrates with the $SiO_x$ and/or $SiO_xN_y$ films showed the enhanced properties of decreased water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) over $10^{-1}\;g/m^2{\cdot}day$ compared with the PEN substrate without any gas barrier films, which was due to high packing density in the Si-based films with high plasma density by FTS process and/or the denser chemical structure of Si-N bond in the $SiO_xN_y$ film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.234.2-234.2
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• 2014

Organic light emitting diode (OLED) is considered as the next generation flat panel displays due to its advantages of low power consumption, fast response time, broad viewing angle and flexibility. For the flexible application, it is essential to develop thin film encapsulation (TFE) to protect oxidation of organic materials from oxidative species such as oxygen and water vapor [1]. In many TFE research, the inorganic film by atomic layer deposition (ALD) process demonstrated a good barrier property. However, extremely low throughput of ALD process is considered as a major weakness for industrial application. Recently, there has been developed a high throughput ALD, called 'spatial ALD' [2]. In spatial ALD, the precursors and reactant gases are supplied continuously in same chamber, but they are separated physically using a purge gas streams to prevent mixing of the precursors and reactant gases. In this study, the $Al_2O_3$ thin film was deposited by spatial ALD process. We characterized various process variables in the spatial ALD such as temperature, scanning speed, and chemical compositions. Water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) was determined by calcium resistance test and less than $10-^3g/m^2{\cdot}day$ was achieved. The samples were analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM).

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.147-154
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• 2009

Radish sprout was packaged with different materials. PO and PC are both hard case PET(polyethylenterephthalate) and has 6 holes and no holes, respectively. LO, LM and LH are anti-fogging OPP(oriented polypropylene) film which have different oxygen transmission rates. The oxygen concentration and weight loss rate in PO packaged were higher than any other packages. The soluble solid contents of radish sprouts packaged with PO showed much increased during storage. The pH increased during storage but pH of the samples packaged with high oxygen transmission rate was relatively low. Radish sprouts in LO had lower b value as compared to other samples. The result of ${\Delta}E$ value was generally high during storage period, especially at 7 days storage. The contents of total polyphenolic compounds and free radical scavenging activity of radish sprout packaged with PC and LO were high. Total aerobic bacteria of sprouts in PC and LO was much higher than others. The result of organoleptic qualities showed that the radish sprouts packaged with LM had a good score in terms of overall acceptability until 7 days storage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.95-95
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• 2014

An OLED(Organic Light-Emitting Diode) device based on the emissive electroluminescent layer a film of organic materials. OLED is used for many electronic devices such as TV, mobile phones, handheld games consoles. ULVAC's mass production systems are indispensable to the manufacturing of OLED device. ULVAC is a manufacturer and worldwide supplier of equipment and vacuum systems for the OLED, LCD, Semiconductor, Electronics, Optical device and related high technology industries. The SMD Series are single-substrate sputtering systems for deposition of films such as metal films and TCO (Transparent Conductive Oxide) films. ULVAC has delivered a large number of these systems not only Organic Evaporating systems but also LTPS CVD systems. The most important technology of thin-film encapsulation (TFE) is preventing moisture($H_2O$) and oxygen permeation into flexible OLED devices. As a polymer substrate does not offer the same barrier performance as glass substrate, the TFE should be developed on both the bottom and top side of the device layers for sufficient lifetimes. This report provides a review of promising thin-film barrier technologies as well as the WVTR(Water Vapor Transmission Rate) properties. Multilayer thin-film deposition technology of organic and inorganic layer is very effective method for increasing barrier performance of OLED device. Gases and water in the organic evaporating system is having a strong influence as impurities to OLED device. CRYO pump is one of the very useful vacuum components to reduce above impurities. There for CRYO pump is faster than conventional TMP exhaust velocity of gases and water. So, we suggest new method to make a good vacuum condition which is CRYO Trap addition on OLED evaporator. Alignment accuracy is one of the key technologies to perform high resolution OLED device. In order to reduce vibration characteristic of CRYO pump, ULVAC has developed low vibration CRYO pumps to achieve high resolution alignment performance between Metal mask and substrate. This report also includes ULVAC's approach for these issues.