• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2016

In this study, we have investigated the effect of the substrate temperature on the characteristics of IGZO thin films for the TCO(transparent conducting oxide). For this purpose, IGZO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at various substrate temperature (room temperature ${\sim}400^{\circ}C$). IGZO thin films deposited at room temperature show amorphous structure, whereas IGZO thin films deposited at $250^{\circ}C$ or more show crystalline structure having an (222) preferential orientation. The electrical resistivity of IGZO film increased with increasing temperature. The change of electrical resistivity with increasing temperature was mainly interpreted in terms of the charge carrier concentration rather than the charge carrier mobility. The electrical resistivity of the amorphous-IGZO films deposited at R.T. was lower than that of the crystalline-IGZO thin films deposited at $300^{\circ}C$. The transmittance of the IGZO films deposited at $300^{\circ}C$ was decreased deposited with hydrogen gas.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.46-50
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• 2016

In this study, we have investigated the effect of the substrate temperature and hydrogen flow rate on the characteristics of IGZO thin films for the TCO(transparent conducting oxide). For this purpose, IGZO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature and $300^{\circ}C$ with various $H_2$ flow rate. In order to investigate the influences of the hydrogen, the flow rate of hydrogen in argon mixing gas has been changed from 0.1sccm to 1.0sccm. IGZO thin films deposited at room temperature show amorphous structure, whereas IGZO thin films deposited at $300^{\circ}C$ show crystalline structure having an (222) preferential orientation. The electrical resistivity of the amorphous-IGZO films deposited at R.T. was lower than that of the crystalline-IGZO thin films deposited at $300^{\circ}C$. The increase of electrical resistivity with increasing substrate temperature was interpreted in terms of the decrease of the charge carrier mobility. The transmittance of the IGZO films deposited at $300^{\circ}C$ was decreased deposited with hydrogen gas.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.322-328
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• 2015

We investigated the diffusion behaviors, electrical properties, microstructures, and composition of In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) oxide thin films deposited by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering with increasing annealing temperatures. The samples were deposited at room temperature and then annealed at 300, 400, 500, 600 and $700^{\circ}C$ in air ambient for 2 h. According to the results of time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, no diffusion of In, Ga, and Zn components were observed at 300, 400, 500, $600^{\circ}C$, but there was a diffusion at $700^{\circ}C$. However, for the sample annealed at $700^{\circ}C$, considerable diffusion occurred. Especially, the concentration of In and Ga components were similar at the IGZO thin film but were decreased near the interface between the IGZO and glass substrate, while the concentration of Zn was decreased at the IGZO thin film and some Zn were partially diffused into the glass substrate. The high-resolution transmission electron microscopy results showed that a phase change at the interface between IGZO film and glass substrate began to occur at $500^{\circ}C$ and an unidentified crystalline phase was observed at the interface between IGZO film and glass substrate due to a rapid change in composition of In, Ga and Zn at $700^{\circ}C$. The best values of electron mobility of $15.5cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ and resistivity of $0.21{\Omega}cm$ were obtained from the sample annealed at $600^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.473-479
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• 2011

In this paper, we have compared amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) with the nano-crystalline embedded-IGZO ($N_c$-embedded-IGZO) TFT fabricated by solid-phase crystallization (SPC) technique. The field effect mobility (${\mu}_{FE}$) of $N_c$-embedded-IGZO TFT was 2.37 $cm^2/Vs$ and the subthreshold slope (S-factor) was 0.83 V/decade, which showed lower performance than those of a-IGZO TFT (${\mu}_{FE}$ of a-IGZO was 9.67 $cm^2/Vs$ and S-factor was 0.19 V/decade). This results originated from generation of oxygen vacancies in oxide semiconductor and interface between gate insulator and semiconductor due to high temperature annealing process. However, the threshold voltage shift (${\Delta}V_{TH}$) of $N_c$-embedded-IGZO TFT was 0.5 V, which showed 1 V less shift than that of a-IGZO TFT under constant current stress during $10^5$ s. This was because there were additionally less increase of interface trap charges in Nc-embedded-IGZO TFT than a-IGZO TFT.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.56-63
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• 2023

In this paper, we studied the effect of electron beam irradiation on sol-gel indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) thin films under air and nitrogen atmosphere and carried out the electrical characterization of the s ol-gel IGZO thin film transistors (TFTs). To investigate the optical properties, crystalline structure and chemical state of the sol-gel IGZO thin films after electron beam irradiation, UV-Visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were carried out. The sol-gel IGZO thin films exhibited over 80% transmittance in the visible range. The XRD analysis confirmed the amorphous nature of the sol-gel IGZO films regardless of electron beam irradiation. When electron beam irradiation was conducted in a nitrogen (N₂) atmosphere, we observed an increased proportion of peaks related to M-O bonding contributed to the improved quality of the thin films. Sol-gel IGZO TFTs subjected to electron beam exposure in a nitrogen atmosphere exhibited enhanced electrical characteristics in terms of on/off ratio and electron mobility. In addition, the electrical parameters of the transistor (on/off ratio, threshold voltage, electron mobility, subthreshold swing) remained relatively stable over time, indicating that the electron beam exposure process in a nitrogen atmosphere could enhance the reliability of IGZO-based thin-film transistors in the fabrication of sol-gel processed TFTs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.352.1-352.1
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• 2014

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films are the most extensively studied and commonly used as ones of TCO films. The ITO films having a high electric conductivity and high transparency are easily fabricated on glass substrate at a substrate temperature over $250^{\circ}C$. However, glass substrates are somewhat heavy and brittle, whereas plastic substrates are lightweight, unbreakable, and so on. For these reasons, it has been recently suggested to use plastic substrates for flexible display application instead of glass. Many reaearchers have tried to produce high quality thin films at rood temperatures by using several methods. Therefore, amorphous ITO films excluding thermal process exhibit a decrease in electrical conductivity and optical transparency with time and a very poor chemical stability. However the amorphous Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) offers several advantages. For typical instance, unlike either crystalline or amorphous ITO, same and higher than a-IGZO resistivity is found when no reactive oxygen is added to the sputter chamber, this greatly simplifies the deposition. We reported on the characteristics of a-IGZO thin films were fabricated by RF-magnetron sputtering method on the PEN substrate at room temperature using 3inch sputtering targets different rate of Zn. The homogeneous and stable targets were prepared by calcine and sintering process. Furthermore, two types of IGZO TFT design, a- IGZO source/drain material in TFT and the other a- ITO source/drain material, have been fabricated for comparison with each other. The experimental results reveal that the a- IGZO source/drain electrode in IGZO TFT is shown to be superior TFT performances, compared with a- ITO source/drain electrode in IGZO TFT.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.4-4
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• 2010

Single-crystalline IGZO (Indium-Gallium-Zinc oxide) was fabricated on c-sapphire substrate. Single crystal ZnO was used as a buffer layer, and post-annealing was treated in $900^{\circ}C$ for crystallization of IGZO. Crystallized IGZO formed superlattice structure spontaneously induced to c-axis direction by ZnO butTer layer, the composition of IGZO was varied by amount of ZnO. Crystallinity and composition of IGZO was analyzed by X-ray Diffraction and Transmission Electron Microscopy.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnestics Society Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.133-133
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• 2016

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.192.1-192.1
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• 2015

We demonstrated the nonvolatile memory functionality of nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si) and InGaZnOxide (IGZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) using mobile protons that are generated by very short time hydrogen neutral beam (H-NB) treatment in gate insulator (SiO2). The whole memory fabrication process kept under $50^{\circ}C$ (except SiO2 deposition process; $300^{\circ}C$). These devices exhibited reproducible hysteresis, reversible switching, and nonvolatile memory behaviors in comparison with those of the conventional FET devices. We also executed hydrogen treatment in order to figure out the difference of mobile proton generation between PECVD and H-NB CVD that we modified. Our study will further provide a vision of creating memory functionality and incorporating proton-based storage elements onto a probability of next generation flexible memorable electronics such as low power consumption flexible display panel.