• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.485-490
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• 1994

The reactive ion etching characteristics of aluminum oxide films, prepared by PECVD, were investigated in the CCl4 plasma. The atomic chlorine concentration and the DC self bias were determined at various etching conditions, and their effects on the etch rate of aluminum oxide film were studied. The bombarding energy of incident particles was found to play the more important role in determining the etch rate of aluminum oxide rather than the atomic chlorine concentration. It is considered to be because the bombardment of ions or neutral atoms breaks the strong Al-O bonds of aluminum oxide to help activate the formation reaction of AlCl3 which is the volatile etch product.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.7-11
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• 2002

In this study, Au thin films were etched with a $Cl_2/Ar$ gas combination in an in an inductively coupled plasma. The etch properties were measured for different gas mixing ratios of $Cl_2/(Cl_2+Ar)$ while the other process conditions were fixed at rf power (700 W), dc bias voltage (150 V), and chamber pressure (15 mTorr). The highest etch rate of the Au thin film was 3500 $\AA/min$ and the selectivity of Au to $SiO_2$ was 4.38 at a $Cl_2/(Cl_2+Ar)$ gas mixing ratio of 0.2. The surface reaction of the etched Au thin films was investigated using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. There is Au-Cl bonding by chemical reaction between Cl and Au. During the etching of Au thin films in $Cl_2/Ar$ plasma, Au-Cl bond is formed, and these products can be removed by the physical bombardment of Ar ions. In addition, Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) were investigated to analyze radical density of Cl and Ar in plasma. The profile of etched Au investigated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
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• v.36D no.5
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• pp.29-35
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• 1999

Inductively coupled plsama etching of platinum thin film was studied using $O_2$ addition to $Cl_2$/Ar gas plasma. In this study, Pt etching mechanism was investigated with Ar/$Cl_2$ /$O_2$ gas plasma by using XPS and QMS. Ion current density was measured with Ar/$Cl_2$ /$O_2$ gas plasma by using single Langmuir probe. It was confirmed by using QMS and single Langmuir probe that Cl and Ar species rapidly decreased and ion current density was also decreased with increasing $O_2$ gas ratios. These results implied that the decrease of Pt etch rate is due to the decrease of reactive species ans ion current density with increasing $O_2$ gas mixing ratios. A maximum etch rate of 150nm/min and the oxide selectivity of 2.5 were obtained at Ar/$Cl_2$ /$O_2$ flow rate of 50 seem, RF power of 600 W, dc bias voltage of 125 V, and the total pressure of 10 mTorr.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.318-323
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• 2000

The planarization of rough polycrystalline diamond films synthesized by DC arc discharge plasma jet CVD (chemical vapor deposition) was attempted using KrF excimer laser pulses. The effects of laser incidence angle and reaction gases (ozone and oxygen) on etching rate of diamond were studied. The temperature change of diamond and graphite with different laser fluences was calculated by computer simulation to explain the etching behavior of diamond films. The threshold energy density from the experiment for etching of pure crystalline diamond was about $1.7J/cm^2$ and fairly matched the simulation value. Preferential etching of a particular crystallographic plane was observed through scanning electron microscopy. The etching rate of diamond with ozone was lower than that with oxygen. When the angle of incidence was $80^{\circ}$ to the diamond surface normal, the peak-to-valley surface roughness was Significantly reduced from $20{\mu}m$ to $0.5{\mu}m$.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.315-319
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• 2007

A technique to model plasma processes was presented. This was accomplished by combining the backpropagation neural network (BPNN) and genetic algorithm (GA). Particularly, the GA was used to optimize five training factor effects by balancing the training and test errors. The technique was evaluated with the plasma etch data, characterized by a face-centered Box Wilson experiment. The etch outputs modeled include Al etch rate, AI selectivity, DC bias, and silica profile angle. Scanning electron microscope was used to quantify the etch outputs. For comparison, the etch outputs were modeled in a conventional fashion. GABPNN models demonstrated a considerable improvement of more than 25% for all etch outputs only but he DC bias. About 40% improvements were even achieved for the profile angle and AI etch rate. The improvements demonstrate that the presented technique is effective to improving BPNN prediction performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.52-55
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• 2000

In this study, (Ba,Sr)$TiO_3$(BST) thin films were etched with a magnetically enhanced inductively coupled plasma(MEICP) as a function Ar/$CF_4$ gas mixing ratio. Experiment was done by varying the etching parameters such as rf power, dc bias voltage and chamber pressure. The maximum etch rate of the BST films was 1700 ${\AA}/min$ under $CF_4/(CF_4+Ar)$ of 0.1, 600 W/350 V and 5 mTorr. The selectivity of BST to Pt and PR was 0.6, 0.7, respectively. X -ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) studies shows that there are surface reaction between Ba, Sr, Ti and C, F radicals during the etching. To analyze the composition of surface residue remaining after the etching, films etched with different $CF_4$/Ar gas mixing ratio were investigated using XPS.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.1-4
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• 2003

The etching of Au thin films has been performed in an inductively coupled $CF_4 / Cl_2 / Ar$ plasma. The etch properties including etch rate and selectivity were examined as $CF_4$ content adds from o to $30\%$ to $Cl_2/Ar$ plasma. The $Cl_2/(Cl_2 + Ar)$ gas mixing ratio was fixed at $20\%$. Other parameters were fixed at an rf power of 700 W, a dc bias voltage of -150 V, a chamber pressure of 15 mTorr, and a substrate temperature of $30^{\circ}C$. The highest etch rate of the Au thin film was 370 nm/min at a $10\%$ additive $CF_4$ into $Cl_2/Ar$ gas mixture. The surface reaction of the etched Au thin films was investigated using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The XPS analysis shows that the intensities of Ail peaks are changed, indicating that there is a chemical reaction between Cl and Au. Au-Cl is hard to remove on the surface because of its high melting point. However, etching products can be sputtered by Ar ion bombardment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.102-102
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• 2008

Sapphire (${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$) has been used as the substrate of opto-electronic device because of characteristics of thermal stability, comparatively low cost, large diameter, optical transparency and chemical compatibility. However, there is difficulty in the etching and patterning due to the physical stability of sapphire and the selectivity with sapphire and mask materials [1,2]. Therefore, sapphire has been studied on the various fields and need to be studied, continuously. In this study, the etching properties of sapphire substrate were investigated with various $CH_4$/Ar gas combination, radio frequency (RF) power, DC-bias voltage and process pressure. The characteristics of the plasma were estimated for mechanism using optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The chemical compounds on the surface of sapphire substrate were investigated using energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The chemical reaction on the surface of the etched sapphire substrate was observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to investigate the vertical and slope profiles.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.314-318
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• 2002

The etching behaviors of the ferroelectric $YMnO_3$ thin films were studied by an inductively coupled plasma (ICP). The maximum etch rate of $YMnO_3$ thin film is 300 ${\AA}/min$ at Ar/$Cl_2$of 2/8, RF power of 800W, dc bias voltage of 200V, chamber pressure of 15mTorr and substrate temperature of $30^{\circ}C$. Addition of $CF_4$ gas decrease the etch rate of $YMnO_3$ thin film. From the results of XPS analysis, nonvolatile $YF_x$ compounds were found on the surface of $YMnO_3$ thin film which is etched in Ar/$Cl_2$/CF$_4$plasma. The etch profile of YMnO$_3$film is improved by addition of $CF_4$ gas into the Ar/$Cl_2$ plasma. These results suggest that YF$_{x}$ compound acts as a sidewall passivants which reduce the sticking coefficient of chlorine on $YMnO_3$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.168-168
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• 2008

Dimension of a transistor has rapidly shrunk to increase the speed of device and to reduce the power consumption. However, it is accompanied with several problems like direct tunneling through the gate dioxide layer and low conductivity characteristic of poly-Si gate in nano-region. To cover these faults, study of new materials is urgently needed. Recently, high dielectric materials like $Al_2O_3$, $ZrO_2$, and $HfO_2$ are being studied for equivalent oxide thickness (EOT). However, poly-Si gate is not compatible with high-k materials for gate-insulator. Poly Si gate with high-k material has some problems such as gate depletion and dopant penetration problems. Therefore, new gate structure or materials that are compatible with high-k materials are also needed. TiN for metal/high-k gate stack is conductive enough to allow a good electrical connection and compatible with high-k materials. According to this trend, the study on dry etching of TiN for metal/high-k gate stack is needed. In this study, the investigations of the TiN etching characteristics were carried out using the inductively coupled $BCl_3$-based plasma system and adding $Cl_2$ gas. Dry etching of the TiN was studied by varying the etching parameters including $BCl_3$/Ar gas mixing ratio, RF power, DC-bias voltage to substrate, and $Cl_2$ gas addition. The plasmas were characterized by optical emission spectroscopy analysis. Scanning electron microscopy was used to investigate the etching profile.