• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.151-155
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• 2002

In situ stress changes at interfaces of ultrathin magnetic films were measured by means of a non-contact optical fiber bundle displacement detector. A bending of the substrate due to stress of a deposited film was detected in cantilever geometry. The highest sensitivity of 134 mV/$\mu$m for the displacement detector was realized with a help of computer simulation. The detector was applied to in situ stress measurements of Co/Pt and Ni/Pd magnetic multilayer films prepared on the glass substrates by dc magnetron sputtering. The detector turned out to have a submonolayer sensitivity that enables to observe coherent-to-incoherent transition in these mismatched multilayers and even detect the stress changes within the monoatomic coverage. This highly sensitive detector paves new way to probe the stress relaxation at an interface in ultrathin films.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.748-757
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• 2018

Inorganic semiconductor compounds, e.g., CIGS and CZTS, are promising materials for thin film solar cells because of their high light absorption coefficient and stability. Research on thin film solar cells using this compound has made remarkable progress in the last two decades. Vacuum-based processes, e.g., co-evaporation and sputtering, are well established to obtain high-efficiency CIGS and/or CZTS thin film solar cells with over 20 % of power conversion. However, because the vacuum-based processes need high cost equipment, they pose technological barriers to producing low-cost and large area photovoltaic cells. Recently, non-vacuum based processes, for example the solution/nanoparticle precursor process, the electrodeposition method, or the polymer-capped precursors process, have been intensively studied to reduce capital expenditure. Lately, over 17 % of energy conversion efficiency has been reported by solution precursors methods in CIGS solar cells. This article reviews the status of non-vacuum techniques that are used to fabricate CIGS and CZTS thin films solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.133-138
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• 2021

Ternary Ti-X-N coatings, where X = Al, Si, Cr, O, etc., have been widely used for machining tools and cutting tools such as inserts, end-mills, and etc. Ti-Al-N-O coatings were deposited onto silicon wafer and WC-Co substrates by a cathodic arc evaporation (CAE) technique at various negative substrate bias voltages. In this study, the influence of substrate bias voltages during deposition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Ti-Al-N-O coatings were systematically investigated to optimize the CAE deposition condition. Based on results from various analyses, the Ti-Al-N-O coatings prepared at substrate bias voltage of -80 V in the process exhibited excellent mechanical properties with a higher compressive residual stress. The Ti-Al-N-O (-80 V) coating exhibited the highest hardness around 30 GPa and elastic modulus around 303 GPa. The improvement of mechanical properties with optimized bias voltage of -80 V can be explained with the diminution of macroparticles, film densification and residual stress induced by ion bombardment effect. However, the increasing bias voltage above -80 V caused reduction in film deposition rate in the Ti-Al-N-O coatings due to re-sputtering and ion bombardment phenomenon.

• Transactions of the Society of Information Storage Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.93-98
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• 2005

Rewritable optical disk is one of the essential data storage media in these days, which takes advantage of the different optical properties in the amorphous and crystalline states of phase change materials. As well known, data transfer rate is one of the most important parameter of the phase change optical disks, which is mostly limited by the crystallization speed of recording media. Therefore, we doped Sn/Bi to $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$ alloy in order to improve the crystallization speed and investigated the dependence of phase change characteristics on Sn/Bi doping concentration. The Sn/Bi doped $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$ thin film was deposited by RF magnetron co-sputtering system and phase change characteristics were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), static tester, UV-visible spectrophotometer, electron probe microanalysis (EPMA), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Optimum doping concentration of Bi and Sn were 5${\~}$6 at.$\%$ and the minimum time for crystallization was below than 20 ns. This improvement is correlated with the simple crystalline structure of Sn/Bi doped $Ge_2Sb_2Te_5$ and the reduced activation barrier arising from Sn/Bi doping. The results indicate that Sn/Bi might play an important role in the transformation kinetics of phase change materials..

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.547-555
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• 2023

High-density crossbar arrays based on storage class memory (SCM) are ideally suited to handle an exponential increase in data storage and processing as a central hardware unit in the era of AI-based technologies. To achieve this, selector devices are required to be co-integrated with SCM to address the sneak-path current issue that indispensably arises in such crossbar-type architecture. In this perspective, we first summarize the current state of tellurium-based threshold-switching devices and recent advances in the material, processing, and device aspects. We thoroughly review the physicochemical properties of elemental tellurium (Te) and representative binary tellurides, their tailored deposition techniques, and operating mechanisms when implemented in two-terminal threshold switching devices. Lastly, we discuss the promising research direction of Te-based selectors and possible issues that need to be considered in advance.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.72-77
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• 2001

Top spin valve films with PtMn antiferromagnetic layers were deposited using a multi-target dc magnetron sputtering in (100)Si substrates overcoated with 500 $\AA$ of Al$_2$O$_3$. Firstly, the post-deposition annealing was performed at 270$\^{C}$ in a unidirectional magnetic field of 3 kOe to induce the crystallographic transformation of the PtMn layer from a fcc (111) to a fct (111) structure. Secondly, the spin valve films were annealed without magnetic fields and magnetic properties were measured. In Si/A1$_2$O$_3$ (500$\AA$)/Ta(50$\AA$)NiFe(40$\AA$)/CoFe(17$\AA$)/Cu(28$\AA$)/CoFe (30$\AA$)PtMn(200$\AA$)Ta(50$\AA$) top spin valve samples, the MR ratio decreased slowly with increasing annealing temperature up to 325$\^{C}$. But above 325$\^{C}$, the MR ratio decreased rapidly to 1%, due to a collapse of the exchange coupling between a antiferromagnetic layer and a pinned layer with increasing annealing temperature. Also above 325$\^{C}$, the exchange biased field rapidly decreased and the interlayer coupling field rapidly increased with increasing annealing temperature. A change in the interlayer coupling field was resulted from the increase in interface roughness due to Mn-interdiffusion through the grain boundaries. We confirmed the temperature in changing magnetic properties agreed well with the blocking temperature of PtMn based spin valve structure.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.273
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• pp.88-93
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• 2005

Ti-AI-Si-N coating layers were deposited on WC-Co substrates by a hybrid system of arc ion plating and sputtering techniques. The coatings were prepared with different Si contents to investigate the effect of Si content on their mechanical properties and microstructures. The dry sliding wear experiments were conducted on Ti-AI-Si-N coated WC-Co discs at constant load, 3N, and sliding speed, 0.1 m/s with two different counterpart materials such as steel ball and zirconia ball using a conventional ball-on-disc sliding wear apparatus. In the case of steel ball, the friction coefficient of Ti-AI-Si-N coating layers became lower than that of Ti-AI­N coating layers. The friction coefficient decreased with increasing of Si content due to adhesive wear behavior between coating layer and steel ball. On the contrary, in the case of zirconia ball, the friction coefficient increased with increasing of Si content, indicating that abrasive wear behavior was more dominant when the coating layers slid against zirconia ball.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.463-471
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• 2004

The Fabry-Perot interferometer filters for UV meter were designed using the design program of optical thin films. From the data obtained, two filters were fabricated. The transmittance of two filter were measured by spectrophotometer in order to analysis their optical property. The transmittance was controlled by the thickness of Ag reflector and the wavelength of the transmission was controlled by the thickness of $SiO_2$ spacer. The two UV filters were fabricated by the RF magnetron sputtering which are the multilayers of [air/$SiO_2$(174.6 nm)|Ag(78 nm)|$SiO_2$(68 nm)|Ag(78 nm)|Cr(5 nm)|glass] and [air/$SiO_2$(174.6 nm)|Ag(S8 nm)|$SiO_2$(56 nm)|Ag(58 nm)|Cr(S nm)|glass]. One filter has the maximum transmittance of 6% at the about 370nm and it has the transmittance of below 0.2% at 400nm. The other filter can be found that the transmittance is increased as the thickness of Ag is decreased and the wavelength of the transmission is controlled by the thickness of $SiO_2$ spacer layer.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.34-39
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• 2006

Electrochemical properties of Cu foil current collector with a $Li_{0.5}La_{0.5}TiO_3$ Cu a Si thin film deposited by r.f sputtering as an anode for Li free battery were evaluated. The Cu foil current collectors were lied in and out of plasma during sputtering process. The X-ray diffraction results indicated that the as-deposited Si and $Li_{0.5}La_{0.5}TiO_3$ thin films in and out of plasma did not show any crystalline difference. The $Li_{0.5}La_{0.5}TiO_3$ film in plasma and Si film out of plasma showed better cyclability since crystalline $Li_{0.5}La_{0.5}TiO_3$ has much higher ionic conductivity and crystalline Si film is much sensitive far volume change during charge-discharge process. These results suggested that the deposition of amorphous Si on Cu foil current collector is much better for fabrication of Li free battery and it can be useful for the unique battery with a cycling number constraint of below 10.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.127-131
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• 2002

We fabricated MTJ devices that have doubly oxidized tunnel barrier using plasma oxidation method to from oxidized AlO$\sub$x/ tunnel barrier. Doubly oxidation I, which sputtered 10 ${\AA}$-bottom Al layer and oxidized it with oxidation time of 10 s. Subsequent sputtering of 13 ${\AA}$-Al was performed and the metallic layer was oxidized for 50, 80 and 120 s., respectively. Doubly oxidation II, which sputtered 10 ${\AA}$-bottom Al layer and oxidized it varying oxidation time for 30∼120 s. Subsequent sputtering of 13 ${\AA}$-Al was performed and the metallic layer was oxidized for 210 sec. Double oxidation process specimen showed MR ratio of above 27％ in all experiment range. Singly oxidation process. 13 ${\AA}$-Al layer and oxidized up to 210 s, showed less MR ratio and more narrow process window than those of doubly oxidation. Cross-sectional TEM images would that doubly oxidized barrowers were thinner and denser than singly oxidized ones. XPS characterization confirmed that doubly oxidation of Fe with bottom insulating layer. As a result, doubly oxidation could have superior MR ratio in process extent during long oxidation time because of preventing oxidation of bottom magnetic layer than singly oxidation.