• ETRI Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.73-80
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• 2003

This paper describes an effective method for forming silicon oxide on silica-on-silicon platforms, which results in excellent characteristics for hybrid integration. Among the many processes involved in fabricating silica-on-silicon platforms with planar lightwave circuits (PLCs), the process for forming silicon oxide on an etched silicon substrate is very important for obtaining transparent silica film because it determines the compatibility at the interface between the silicon and the silica film. To investigate the effects of the formation process of the silicon oxide on the characteristics of the silica PLC platform, we compared two silicon oxide formation processes: thermal oxidation and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Thermal oxidation in fabricating silica platforms generates defects and a cristobalite crystal phase, which results in deterioration of the optical waveguide characteristics. On the other hand, a silica platform with the silicon oxide layer deposited by PECVD has a transparent planar optical waveguide because the crystal growth of the silica has been suppressed. We confirm that the PECVD method is an effective process for silicon oxide formation for a silica platform with excellent characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.664-668
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• 2008

Vapor phase polymerization of a conductive polymer on a $SiO_2$ surface can offer an easy and convenient means to depositing pure and conductive polymer thin films. However, the vapor phase deposition is generally associated with very poor adhesion as well as difficulty when patterning the polymer thin film onto an oxide dielectric substrate. For a significant improvement of the patternability and adhesion of Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) thin film to a $SiO_2$ surface, the substrate was pre-patterned with n-octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) molecules using a ${\mu}$-contact printing method. The negative patterns were then backfilled with each of three amino-functionalized silane self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of (3-aminopropyl) trimethoxysilane (APS), N-(2-aminoethyl)-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (EDA), and (3- trimethoxysilylpropyl)diethylenetriamine (DET). The quality and electrical properties of the patterned P3HT thin films were investigated with optical and atomic force microscopy and a four-point probe. The results exhibited excellent selective deposition and significantly improved adhesion of P3HT films to a $SiO_2$ surface. In addition, the conductivity of polymeric thin films was relatively high (${\sim}13.51\;S/cm$).

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.55.1-55.1
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• 2010

Cost efficient and large area deposition of superior quality $Al_2O_3$ doped zinc oxide (AZO) films is instrumental in many of its applications including solar cell fabrication due to its numerous advantages over ITO films. In this study, AZO films were prepared by a highly efficient rotating cylindrical dc magnetron sputtering system using AZO target, which has a target material utilization above 80%, on glass substrates in argon ambient. A detailed analysis on the electrical, optical and structural characteristics of AZO thin films was carried out for solar cell application. The properties of films were found to critically depend on deposition parameters such as sputtering power, substrate temperature, working pressure, and thickness of the films. A low resistivity of ${\sim}5.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}-cm$ was obtained for films deposited at 2kW, keeping the pressure and substrate temperature constant at 3 mtorr and $230^{\circ}C$ respectively, mainly due to an increase in carrier mobility and large grain size which would reduce the grain boundary scattering. The increase in carrier mobility with power can be attributed to the columnar growth of AZO film with (002) preferred orientation as revealed by XRD analysis. The AZO films showed a high transparency of>87% in the visible wavelength region irrespective of deposition conditions. Our results offers a cost-efficient AZO film deposition method which can fabricate films with significant low resistivity and high transmittance that can find application in thin-film solar cells.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1425_1426
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• 2009

In this study, commercially available polyethylene terephthalate(PET), which is widely used as a substrate of flexible electronic devices, was modified by dielectric barrier discharge(DBD) method in an air condition at atmospheric pressure, and aluminium - doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) transparent conducting film was deposited on PET substrate by r. f. magnetron sputtering method. Surface analysis and characterization of the plasma-treated PET substrate was carried out using contact angle measurements, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy(XPS) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Especially the effect of surface state of PET substrate on some important properties of ZnO:Al transparent conducting film such as electrical and morphological properties and deposition rate of the film, was studied experimentally. The results showed that the contact angle of water on PET film was reduced significantly from $62^{\circ}$ to $43^{\circ}$ by DBD surface treatment at 20 min. of treatment time. The plasma treatment also improved the deposition rate and electrical properties. The deposition rate was increased almost linearly with surface treatment time. The lowest electrical resistivity as low as $4.97{\times}10^{-3}[\Omega-cm]$ and the highest deposition rate of 234[${\AA}m$/min] were obtained in ZnO:Al film with surface treatment time of 5min. and 20min., respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2009

The Cu thin film material and process, which have been already used for metallization of CMOS(Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor), has been highlighted as the Cu metallization is introduced to the metallization process for giga - level memory devices. The recent progresses in the development of key elements in electrochemical processes like surface pretreatment or electrolyte composition are summarized in the paper, because the semiconductor metallization by electrochemical processes such as electrodeposition and electroless deposition controls the thickness of Cu film in a few nm scales. The technologies in electrodeposition and electroless deposition are described in the viewpoint of process compatibility between copper electrodeposition and damascene process, because a Cu metal line is fabricated from the Cu thin film. Silver metallization, which may be expected to be the next generation metallization material due to its lowest resistivity, is also introduced with its electrochemical fabrication methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.208-208
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• 2010

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a functional material with interesting optical and electrical properties, a wide band gap (more than 3.3 eV), a high transmittance in the visible light region, piezoelectric properties, and a high n-type conductivity. This material has been investigated for use in many applications, such as transparent electrodes, blue light-emitting diodes, and ultra-violet detector. ZnO films grown under low oxygen pressure by thin film deposition methods show low resistivity and large free electron concentration. Therefore, reducing the background carrier concentration in ZnO films is one of the major challenges ahead of realizing high-performance ZnO-based optoelectronic devices. In this study, we deposited ZnO thin films on sapphire substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with employing an oxygen plasma source to decrease the background free-electron concentration and enhance the crystalline quality. Then, the substrate temperature was varied between 200 'C to 900 'C The vacuum chamber was initially evacuated to a pressure of $10^{-6}$ Torr, and then a pure $O_2$ gas was introduced into the chamber and the pressure during deposition was maintained at $10^{-2}$ Torr. Crystallinity and orientation of ZnO films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The film surface was analyzed with atomic force microscope (AFM). And electrical properties were measured at room temperature by Hall measurement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.8-9
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• 2006

Hafnium oxide ($HfO_2$) thin films were deposited on p-type (100) silicon wafers by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using TEMAHf and $O_3$. Prior to the deposition of $HfO_2$ films, a thin Hf ($10\;{\AA}$) metal layer was deposited. Deposition temperature of $HfO_2$ thin film was $350^{\circ}C$ and its thickness was $150\;{\AA}$. Samples were then annealed using furnace heating to temperature ranges from 500 to $900^{\circ}C$. The MOS capacitor of round-type was fabricated on Si substrates. Thermally evaporated $3000\;{\AA}$-thick AI was used as top electrode. In this work, We study the interface characterization of $HfO_2$/Hf/Si MOS capacitor depending on annealing temperature. Through AES(Auger Electron Spectroscopy), capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) analysis, the role of Hf layer for the better $HfO_2$/Si interface property was investigated. We found that Hf meta1 layer in our structure effective1y suppressed the generation of interfacial $SiO_2$ layer between $HfO_2$ film and silicon substrate.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.1230-1233
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• 2018

$Al_2O_3$ films with the thickness of 50 nm were fabricated on 4H-SiC by aerosol deposition, and their electrical properties were characterized with different post annealing conditions. As a result, the $Al_2O_3$ film annealed in $N_2$ atmosphere showed decreased fixed charge density at the interface area between the $Al_2O_3$ and SiC, and increased leakage currents due to the generation of oxygen vacancies. From this result, it was confirmed that proper $N_2$ and $O_2$ ratio for the post annealing process is important.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.406-406
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• 2016

To get high efficiency n-type crystalline silicon solar cells, passivation is one of the key factor. Tunnel oxide (SiO2) reduce surface recombination as a passivation layer and it does not constrict the majority carrier flow. In this work, the passivation quality enhanced by different chemical solution such as HNO3, H2SO4:H2O2 and DI-water to make thin tunnel oxide layer on n-type crystalline silicon wafer and changes of characteristics by subsequent annealing process and firing process after phosphorus doped amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) deposition. The tunneling of carrier through oxide layer is checked through I-V measurement when the voltage is from -1 V to 1 V and interface state density also be calculated about $1{\times}1012cm-2eV-1$ using MIS (Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor) structure . Tunnel oxide produced by 68 wt% HNO3 for 5 min on $100^{\circ}C$, H2SO4:H2O2 for 5 min on $100^{\circ}C$ and DI-water for 60 min on $95^{\circ}C$. The oxide layer is measured thickness about 1.4~2.2 nm by spectral ellipsometry (SE) and properties as passivation layer by QSSPC (Quasi-Steady-state Photo Conductance). Tunnel oxide layer is capped with phosphorus doped amorphous silicon on both sides and additional annealing process improve lifetime from $3.25{\mu}s$ to $397{\mu}s$ and implied Voc from 544 mV to 690 mV after P-doped a-Si deposition, respectively. It will be expected that amorphous silicon is changed to poly silicon phase. Furthermore, lifetime and implied Voc were recovered by forming gas annealing (FGA) after firing process from $192{\mu}s$ to $786{\mu}s$. It is shown that the tunnel oxide layer is thermally stable.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.644-647
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• 2006

The indium zinc oxide (IZO) thin films were deposited using a radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering method. Among the various processing variables, $O_{2}$ concentration and annealing temperature after deposition were selected and the optical, electrical, and structural properties of IZO thin films were investigated. As the $O_{2}$ concentration increased, the deposition rate of IZO thin films decreased, the resistivity increased and the transmittance slightly increased. According to atomic force microscopy analysis, the IZO films deposited at pure Ar showed rough surface and those deposited with $O_{2}$ addition exhibited relatively smooth surface. The IZO thin films deposited at pure Ar were annealed at 250, 350, and $450^{\circ}C$, respectively. The IZO thin film deposited at pure Ar showed the lowest transmittance and resistivity and resistivity greatly increased at the annealing temperature exceeding $250^{\circ}C$. The higher annealing temperature IZO films were annealed at, the smoother surface the films showed. The x-ray diffraction revealed that IZO films annealed at higher temperature had better crystalline structures.