• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2012.08a
• /
• pp.251-252
• /
• 2012

Recently, the growing interest in organic microelectronic devices including OLEDs has led to an increasing amount of research into their many potential applications in the area of flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates. However, these organic devices require a gas barrier coating to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency OLEDs require an extremely low Water Vapor Transition Rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2$/day. The Key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required ($1{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2$/day) is the suppression of defect sites and gas diffusion pathways between grain boundaries. In this study, we developed an $Al_2O_3$ nano-crystal structure single gas barrier layer using a Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering (NBAS) process. The NBAS system is based on the conventional RF magnetron sputtering and neutral beam source. The neutral beam source consists of an electron cyclotron Resonance (ECR) plasma source and metal reflector. The Ar+ ions in the ECR plasma are accelerated in the plasma sheath between the plasma and reflector, which are then neutralized by Auger neutralization. The neutral beam energies were possible to estimate indirectly through previous experiments and binary collision model. The accelerating potential is the sum of the plasma potential and reflector bias. In previous experiments, while adjusting the reflector bias, changes in the plasma density and the plasma potential were not observed. The neutral beam energy is controlled by the metal reflector bias. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to nano-crystal phase of various grain sizes within a single inorganic thin film. These NBAS process effects can lead to the formation of a nano-crystal structure barrier layer which effectively limits gas diffusion through the pathways between grain boundaries. Our results verify the nano-crystal structure of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ single gas barrier layer through dielectric constant measurement, break down field measurement, and TEM analysis. Finally, the WVTR of $Al_2O_3$ nano-crystal structure single gas barrier layer was measured to be under $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2$/day therefore we can confirm that NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ nano-crystal structure single gas barrier layer is suitable for OLED application.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.527-533
• /
• 2006

Spinel $LiNi_xMn_{2-x}O_4$ thin films were synthesized up to x = 0.9 by a sol-gel method employing spin-coating. The Ni-substituted films were found to maintain cubic structure at low x but to exhibit tetragonal structure for $x{\geq}0.6$. Such cubic-tetragonal phase transition indicates that $Ni^{3+}(d7)$ ions with low-spin $(t_{2g}^6,e_g^1)$ state occupy the octahedral sites of the compound, thus being subject to the Jahn-Teller distortion. By x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy both $Ni^{2+}$ and $Ni^{3+}$ ions were detected. Optical properties of the $LiNi_xMn_{2-x}O_4$ films were investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) in the visible?ultraviolet range. The measured dielectric function spectra by SE mainly consist of broad absorption structures attributed to charge-transfer (CT) transitions, $O^{2-}(2p){\rightarrow}Mn^{4+}(3d)$ for 1.9 $(t_{2g})$ and $2.8{\sim}3.0$ eV $(e_g)$ structures and $O^{2-}(2p){\rightarrow}Mn^{3+}(3d)$ for 2.3 $(t_{2g})$ and $3.4{\sim}3.6$ eV $(e_g)$ structures. Also, sharp absorption structures were observed at about 1.6, 1.7, and 1.9 eV, interpreted as due to d-d crystal-field transitions within the octahedral $Mn^{3+}$ ion. The strengths of these absorption structures are reduced by the Ni substitution. Rapid reduction of the CT transition strength involving the eg states for x = 0.6 is attributed to the reduced wavefunction overlap between the $e_g$ and the $O^{2-}(2p)$ states due to the tetragonal extension of the lattice constant by the Jahn-Teller effect.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.709-714
• /
• 2018

This study researched the reasons for changing polarity in accordance with junction properties in an interface of semiconductors. The contact properties of semiconductors are related to the effect of the semiconductor's device. Therefore, it is an important factor for understanding the junction characteristics in the semiconductor to increase the efficiency of devices. For generation of various junction properties, carbon-doped silicon oxide (SiOC) was deposited with various argon (Ar) gas flow rates, and the characteristics of the SiOC was varied based on the polarity in accordance with the Ar gas flows. Tin-doped zinc oxide (ZTO) as the conductor was deposited on the SiOC as an insulator to research the conductivity. The properties of the SiOC were determined from the formation of a depletion layer by the ionization reaction with various Ar gas flow rates due to the plasma energy. Schottky contact was good in the condition of the depletion layer, with a high potential barrier between the silicon (Si) wafer and the SiOC. The rate of ionization reactions increased when increasing the Ar gas flow rate, and then the potential barrier of the depletion layer was also increased owing to deficient ions from electron-hole recombination at the junction. The dielectric properties of the depletion layer changed to the properties of an insulator, which is favorable for Schottky contact. When the ZTO was deposited on the SiOC with Schottky contact, the stability of the ZTO was improved by the ionic recombination at the interface between the SiOC and the ZTO. The conductivity of ZTO/SiOC was also increased on SiOC film with ideal Schottky contact, in spite of the decreasing charge carriers. It increases the demand on the Schottky contact to improve the thin semiconductor device, and this study confirmed a high-performance device owing to Schottky contact in a low current system. Finally, the amount of current increased in the device owing to ideal Schottky contact.