• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.170-170
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• 2010

Thin-film transistors (TFT) have become the key components of electronic and optoelectronic devices. Most conventional thin-film field-effect transistors in display applications use an amorphous or polycrystal Si:H layer as the channel. This silicon layers are opaque in the visible range and severely restrict the amount of light detected by the observer due to its bandgap energy smaller than the visible light. Therefore, Si:H TFT devices reduce the efficiency of light transmittance and brightness. One method to increase the efficiency is to use the transparent oxides for the channel, electrode, and gate insulator. The development of transparent oxides for the components of thin-film field-effect transistors and the room-temperature fabrication with low voltage operations of the devices can offer the flexibility in designing the devices and contribute to the progress of next generation display technologies based on transparent displays and flexible displays. In this thesis, I report on the dc performance of transparent thin-film transistors using amorphous indium tin zinc oxides for an active layer. $SiO_2$ was employed as the gate dielectric oxide. The amorphous indium tin zinc oxides were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering. The carrier concentration of amorphous indium tin zinc oxides was controlled by oxygen pressure in the sputtering ambient. Devices are realized that display a threshold voltage of 4.17V and an on/off ration of ${\sim}10^9$ operated as an n-type enhancement mode with saturation mobility with $15.8\;cm^2/Vs$. In conclusion, the fabrication and characterization of thin-film transistors using amorphous indium tin zinc oxides for an active layer were reported. The devices were fabricated at room temperature by RF magnetron sputtering. The operation of the devices was an n-type enhancement mode with good saturation characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.251-255
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• 2021

a-Si is commonly considered as a primary candidate for the formation of passivation layer in heterojunction (HIT) solar cells. However, there are some problems when using this material such as significant losses due to recombination and parasitic absorption. To reduce these problems, a wide bandgap material is needed. A wide bandgap has a positive influence on effective transmittance, reduction of the parasitic absorption, and prevention of unnecessary epitaxial growth. In this paper, the adoption of a-SiO_x:H as the intrinsic layer was discussed. To increase lifetime and conductivity, oxygen concentration control is crucial because it is correlated with the thickness, bonding defect, interface density (D_it), and band offset. A thick oxygen-rich layer causes the lifetime and the implied open-circuit voltage to drop. Furthermore the thicker the layer gets, the more free hydrogen atoms are etched in thin films, which worsens the passivation quality and the efficiency of solar cells. Previous studies revealed that the lifetime and the implied voltage decreased when the a-SiOx thickness went beyond around 9 nm. In addition to this, oxygen acted as a defect in the intrinsic layer. The D_it increased up to an oxygen rate on the order of 8%. Beyond 8%, the D_it was constant. By controlling the oxygen concentration properly and achieving a thin layer, high-efficiency HIT solar cells can be fabricated.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.24-34
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• 1997

In this study, two different types of complementary electrochromic devices using amorphous $WO_{3}$ films as a working electrode, $V_{2}O_{5}$ film and NiO film as counter electrodes respectively were investigated. For the devices using amorphous and crystalline $V_{2}O_{5}$ films of $100{\sim}150nm$ thickness with $ITO/WO_{3}/LiClO_{4}-PC/V_{2}O_{5}/ITO$ structure, an optical modulation of $50{\sim}60%$ were obtained at a potential range of $1{\sim}2V$. It has been shown that transmittance and reflectance of light could be electrically controlled by low applied voltage. For the devices with $ITO/WO_{3}/LiClO_{4}-PC/NiO/ITO$ structure in which NiO film was deposited by a RF reactive sputtering, the optical modulation in visible light region (${\lambda}=550nm$) and in near infrared light region (${\lambda}=850nm$) were 25% and 30%, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.270-275
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• 2013

Single-layer graphene layers have been synthesized by using chemical vapor deposition, subsequently transferred on 300 nm $SiO_2/Si$ and quartz substrates, and doped with $AuCl_3$ by spin coating for various doping concentrations ($n_D$) from 1 to 10 mM. Based on the $n_D$-dependent variations of Raman frequencies/peak-intensity ratios, sheet resistance, work function, and Dirac point, measured by structural, optical, and electrical analysis techniques, the p-type nature of graphene is shown to be strengthened with increasing $n_D$. Especially, as estimated from the drain current-gate voltage curves of graphene field effect transistors, the hole mobility is very little varied with increasing $n_D$, in strong contrast with the $n_D$-dependent large variation of electron mobility. These results suggest that $AuCl_3$ is one of the best p-type dopants for graphene and is promising for device applications of the doped graphene.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.993-994
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• 2008

Electrochromic (EC) devices are capable of reversibly changing their optical properties upon charge injection and extraction induced by the external voltage. The characteristics of the EC device, such as low power consumption, high coloration efficiency, and memory effects under open circuit status, make them suitable for use in a variety of applications including smart windows and electronic papers. Coloration due to reduction or oxidation of redox chromophores can be used for EC devices (e-paper), but the switching time is slow (second level). Recently, with increasing demand for the low cost, lightweight flat panel display with paper-like readability (electronic paper), an EC display technology based on dye-modified $TiO_2$ nanoparticle electrode was developed. A well known organic dye molecule, viologen, was adsorbed on the surface of a mesoporous $TiO_2$ nanoparticle film to form the EC electrode. On the other hand, ZnO is a wide bandgap II-VI semiconductor which has been applied in many fields such as UV lasers, field effect transistors and transparent conductors. The bandgap of the bulk ZnO is about 3.37 eV, which is close to that of the $TiO_2$ (3.4 eV). As a traditional transparent conductor, ZnO has excellent electron transport properties, even in ZnO nanoparticle films. In the past few years, one-dimension (1D) nanostructures of ZnO have attracted extensive research interest. In particular, 1D ZnO nanowires renders much better electron transportation capability by providing a direct conduction path for electron transport and greatly reducing the number of grain boundaries. These unique advantages make ZnO nanowires a promising matrix electrode for EC dye molecule loading. ZnO nanowires grow vertically from the substrate and form a dense array (Fig. 1). The ZnO nanowires show regular hexagonal cross section and the average diameter of the ZnO nanowires is about 100 nm. The cross-section image of the ZnO nanowires array (Fig. 1) indicates that the length of the ZnO nanowires is about $6\;{\mu}m$. From one on/off cycle of the ZnO EC cell (Fig. 2). We can see that, the switching time of a ZnO nanowire electrode EC cell with an active area of $1\;{\times}\;1\;cm^2$ is 170 ms and 142 ms for coloration and bleaching, respectively. The coloration and bleaching time is faster compared to the $TiO_2$ mesoporous EC devices with both coloration and bleaching time of about 250 ms for a device with an active area of $2.5\;cm^2$. With further optimization, it is possible that the response time can reach ten(s) of millisecond, i.e. capable of displaying video. Fig. 3 shows a prototype with two different transmittance states. It can be seen that good contrast was obtained. The retention was at least a few hours for these prototypes. Being an oxide, ZnO is oxidation resistant, i.e. it is more durable for field emission cathode. ZnO nanotetropods were also applied to realize the first prototype triode field emission device, making use of scattered surface-conduction electrons for field emission (Fig. 4). The device has a high efficiency (field emitted electron to total electron ratio) of about 60%. With this high efficiency, we were able to fabricate some prototype displays (Fig. 5 showing some alphanumerical symbols). ZnO tetrapods have four legs, which guarantees that there is one leg always pointing upward, even using screen printing method to fabricate the cathode.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.176-182
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• 2002

Amorphous $TiO_2$ thin films were deposited on glass substrates by ion beam sputtering in which the ratio of $O_2$/Ar gas used as discharged gas was varied from 0 to 2. After optical and microstructure properties and chemical composition of thin films was analyzed, antireflection coating layers were fabricated with $SiO_2$/$TiO_2$ multi-layers. Thin films deposition was performed at room temperature and ion beam voltage and ion current density for sputtering of target were fixed at 1.2 kV and 200 $\mu\textrm{A}/\textrm{cm}^2$, respectively. Refractive indexs of the deposited $TiO_2$films were 2.40-2.45 at a wavelength of 633 nm. $TiO_2$films had high transmission and stoichiometry when ratio of $O_2$/Ar was 1. Rms roughness of deposited $TiO_2$ film was below 7 $\AA$. In excessive $O_2$ environments, however Rms roughness increased over 50 $\AA$. Transmittance decreased by scattering of rough surface. Reflectance of $SiO_2$/$TiO_2$multi-layers was below 1% in visible light.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.430-430
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• 2007

In general, polyimides (PIs) are used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as alignment layer of liquid crystals (LCs). Up to date, the rubbing alignment technique has been widely used to align liquid crystals on the PI surface, which is suitable for mass-production of LCDs because of its simple process and high productivity. However, this method has some disadvantages. Rubbed PI surfaces include the debris left by the cloth and the generation of electrostatic charges during rubbing process. Therefore, rubbing-free techniques for LC alignment are strongly required in LCD technology. In this experiment, PI was uniformly coated on indium-tin-oxide electrode substrates to form LC alignment layers using a spin-coating method and the PI layers were subsequently imidized at 433 K for 1 h. The thickness of the PI layer was set at 50 nm. The LC alignment layer surfaces were exposed to an $Ar^+$ ion-beam under various ion-beam energies. The antiparallel cells and twisted-nematic (TN) cells for the measurement of pretile angle and electro-optical characteristics were fabricated with the cell gap of 60 and $5\;{\mu}m$, respectively. The LC cells were filled with nematic LC (NLC, MJ001929, Merck) and were assembled. The NLC alignment capability on ion-beam-treated PI was observed using photomicroscope and the pretilt angle of the NLC was measured by the crystal-rotation method at room temperature. Voltage-transmittance (V-T) and response time characteristics of the ion-beam irradiated TN cell were measured by a LCD evaluation system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2000.02a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2000

Titanium oxide (TiO2) thin films have valuable properties such as a high refractive index, excellent transmittance in the visible and near-IR frequency, and high chemical stability. Therefore it is extensively used in anti-reflection coating, sensor, and photocatalysis as electrical and optical applications. Specially, TiO2 have a high dielectric constant of 180 along the c axis and 90 along the a axis, so it is highlighted in fabricating dielectric capacitors in micro electronic devices. A variety of methods have been used to produce patterned self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), including microcontact printing ($\mu$CP), UV-photolithotgraphy, e-beam lithography, scanned-probe based micro-machining, and atom-lithography. Above all, thin film fabrication on $\mu$CP modified surface is a potentially low-cost, high-throughput method, because it does not require expensive photolithographic equipment, and it produce micrometer scale patterns in thin film materials. The patterned SAMs were used as thin resists, to transfer patterns onto thin films either by chemical etching or by selective deposition. In this study, we deposited TiO2 thin films on Si (1000 substrateds using titanium (IV) isopropoxide ([Ti(O(C3H7)4)] ; TIP as a single molecular precursor at deposition temperature in the range of 300-$700^{\circ}C$ without any carrier and bubbler gas. Crack-free, highly oriented TiO2 polycrystalline thin films with anatase phase and stoichimetric ratio of Ti and O were successfully deposited on Si(100) at temperature as low as 50$0^{\circ}C$. XRD and TED data showed that below 50$0^{\circ}C$, the TiO2 thin films were dominantly grown on Si(100) surfaces in the [211] direction, whereas with increasing the deposition temperature to $700^{\circ}C$, the main films growth direction was changed to be [200]. Two distinct growth behaviors were observed from the Arhenius plots. In addition to deposition of THe TiO2 thin films on Si(100) substrates, patterning of TiO2 thin films was also performed at grown temperature in the range of 300-50$0^{\circ}C$ by MOCVD onto the Si(100) substrates of which surface was modified by organic thin film template. The organic thin film of SAm is obtained by the $\mu$CP method. Alpha-step profile and optical microscope images showed that the boundaries between SAMs areas and selectively deposited TiO2 thin film areas are very definite and sharp. Capacitance - Voltage measurements made on TiO2 films gave a dielectric constant of 29, suggesting a possibility of electronic material applications.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.55-60
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• 2020

The PERC photovoltaic (PV) modules installed in PV power plant are still reports potential-induced degradation (PID) degradation due to high voltage potential differences. This is because Na+ ions in the cover glass of PV modules go through the encapsulant (EVA) and transferred to the surface of solar cells. As positive charges are accumulated at the ARC (SiOx/SiNx) interface where many defects are distributed, shunt-resistance (Rsh) is reduced. As a result, the leakage current is increased, and decrease in solar cell's power output. In this study, to prevent of this phenomenon, a Moth-eye nanostructure was deposited on the rear surface of an optical film using Nano-Imprint Lithography method, and a solar mini-module was constructed by inserting it between the cover glass and the EVA. To analyze the PID phenomenon, a cell-level PID acceleration test based on IEC 62804-1 standard was conducted. Also analyzed power output (Pmax), efficiency, and shunt resistance through Light I-V and Dark I-V. As a result, conventional solar cells were decreased by 6.3% from the initial efficiency of 19.76%, but the improved solar cells with the Moth-eye nanostructured optical film only decreased 0.6%, thereby preventing the PID phenomenon. As of Moth-eye nanostructured optical film, the transmittance was improved by 4%, and the solar module output was improved by 2.5%.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.79-85
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• 2022

Recently, a smartphone manufactured on a flexible substrate has been released as an electronic device, and research on a stretchable electronic device is in progress. In this paper, a silicon-based stretchable material is made and used as a substrate to implement and evaluate an optical sensor device using oxide semiconductor. To this end, a substrate that stretches well at room temperature was made using a silicone-based solution rubber, and the elongation of 350% of the material was confirmed, and optical properties such as reflectivity, transmittance, and absorbance were measured. Next, since the surface of these materials is hydrophobic, oxygen-based plasma surface treatment was performed to clean the surface and change the surface to hydrophilicity. After depositing an AZO-based oxide film with vacuum equipment, an Ag electrode was formed using a cotton swab or a metal mast to complete the photosensor. The optoelectronic device analyzed the change in current according to the voltage when light was irradiated and when it was not, and the photocurrent caused by light was observed. In addition, the effect of the optical sensor according to the folding was additionally tested using a bending machine. In the future, we plan to intensively study folding (bending) and stretching optical devices by forming stretchable semiconductor materials and electrodes on stretchable substrates.