• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.116-125
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• 2018

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is a commonly used material for the front contact layer of chalcopyrite $CuInGaSe_2$ (CIGS) based thin film solar cells since it satisfies the requisite optical and electrical properties with low cost and abundant elemental availability. Low-resistivity and high-transmission front contacts have been developed for high-performance CIGS solar cells, and nearly meet the required performance. However, the durability of the cell especially for the corrosion resistance of AZO films has not been studied intensively. In this work, AZO films were prepared on Corning glass 7059 substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering depending on the hydrogen content. The electrical and optical properties and electrochemical corrosion resistance of the AZO films were evaluated as a function of the hydrogen content. With increasing hydrogen content to 6 wt%, the crystallinity, crystal size, and surface roughness of the films increased, and the resistivity decreased with increased carrier concentration, Hall mobility, oxygen vacancies, and $Zn(OH)_2$ binding on the AZO surface. At a hydrogen content of 6 wt%, the corrosion resistance was also relatively high with less columnar morphology, shallow pore channels, and lower grain boundary angles.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 2020

Generally, high-temperature, high-pressure, high-priced sintering equipment is used for diamond sintering, and conductivity is a problem for improving the surface modification of the sintered body. In this study, to improve the efficiency of diamond sintering, we identified a new process and material that can be sintered at low temperature, and attempted to develop a composite thin film that can be discharged by doping boron gas to improve the surface modification of the sintered body. Sintered bodies were sintered by mixing Si and two diamonds in different particle sizes based on CIP molding and HIP molding. In CVD deposition, CVD was performed using WC-Co cemented carbide using CH₄ and H₂ gas, and the specimen was made conductive using boron gas. According to the experimental results of the sintered body, as the Si content is increased, the Vickers hardness decreases drastically, and the values of tensile strength, Young's modulus and fracture toughness greatly increase. Conductive CVD deposited diamond was boron deposited and discharged. As the amount of boron added increased, the strength of diamond peaks decreased and crystallinity improved. In addition, considering the release processability, tool life and adhesion of the deposition surface according to the amount of boron added, the appropriate amount of boron can be confirmed. Therefore, by solving the method of low temperature sintering and conductivity problem, the possibility of solving the existing sintering and deposition problem is presented.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.377-383
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• 2009

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were deposited on sapphire substrate by using radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and were performed in the temperature range of $600-900^{\circ}C$ by rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The crystallographic structure and the surface morphology were investigated by using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The crystallinity of the films was improved with increasing the annealing temperature and the average size of crystalline grains was found to be 50 nm. All the thin films showed an average transmittance of 92% in the wavelength range of 400-1100 nm. As the annealing temperature was increased, the bandgap energy was decreased and the violet photoluminescence (PL) signal at 400 nm replaced the ultraviolet PL signal. The electrical properties of the thin films showed a significant dependence on the annealing temperature.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.287-294
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• 2015

Photovoltaic (PV) modules are environmentally friendly energy-conversion devices to generate electricity via the photovoltaic effect of semiconductors on solar energy. One of key elements in PV modules is "Backsheet," a multi-layered film to protect the devices from a variety of chemicals including water vapor. A representative Backsheet is composed of polyvinyl fluoride (PVF) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). PVF is relatively expensive, while showing excellent resistance to chemical attacks. Thus, it is necessary to develop alternatives which can lower its high production cost and guarantee lifetime applicable to practical PV modules at the same time. In this study, PET films with certain levels of crystallinity were utilized instead of PVF. Since it is well known that PET is suffering from trans-esterification and hydrolysis under a wide pH range, it is needed to understand decomposition behavior of the PET films under PV operation conditions. To evaluate their chemical decomposition behavior within a short period of times, accelerated decomposition test protocol is developed. Moreover, electrochemical long-term performances of the PV module employing the PET-based Backsheet are investigated to prove the efficacy of the proposed concept.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 1996

Silicon epitaxial films of submicron level were successfully grown by the RTCVD method. For the growth of silicon epitaxial layers, $SiH_{2}Cl_{2}\;/\;H_{2}$ gas mixtures and various process parameters including $H_{2}$ prebake process were used. The growth conditions were varied to investigate their effects on the interface abruptness of doping profile, the film growth rates and crystalline properties. The crystallinity of the undoped silicon was excellent at the growth temperature of $900^{\circ}C$. The doping profiles were measured by SIMS technique. The abruptness of doping profile would be controlled within about $200{\AA}/decade$ in the structure of undoped Si / $n^{+}-Si$ substrate.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.457-461
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• 2007

This paper describes the characteristics of poly (polycrystalline) 3C-SiC grown on $SiO_{2}$ and AlN substrates, respectively. The crystallinity and the bonding structure of poly 3C-SiC grown on each substrate were investigated according to various growth temperatures. The crystalline quality of poly 3C-SiC was improved from resulting in decrease of FWHM (full width half maximum) of XRD and FT-IR by increasing the growth temperature. The minimum growth temperature of poly 3C-SiC was $1100^{\circ}C$. The surface chemical composition and the electron mobility of poly 3C-SiC grown on each substrate were investigated by XPS and Hall Effect, respectively. The chemical compositions of surface of poly 3C-SiC films grown on $SiO_{2}$ and AlN were not different. However, their electron mobilities were $7.65{\;}cm^{2}/V.s$ and $14.8{\;}cm^{2}/V.s$, respectively. Therefore, since the electron mobility of poly 3C-SiC films grown on AlN buffer layer was two times higher than that of 3C-SiC/$SiO_{2}$, a AlN film is a suitable material, as buffer layer, for the growth of poly 3C-SiC thin films with excellent properties for M/NEMS applications.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.513-517
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• 2010

There have been many efforts to modify and improve the properties of functional thin films by hybridization with nano-sized materials. For the fabrication of electronic circuits, micro-patterning is a commonly used process. For photochemical metal-organic deposition, photoresist and dry etching are not necessary for microscale patterning. We obtained direct-patternable $SnO_2$ thin films using a photosensitive solution containing Ag nanoparticles and/or multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs). The optical transmittance of direct-patternable $SnO_2$ thin films decreased with introduction of nanomaterials due to optical absorption and optical scattering by Ag nanoparticles and MWNTs, respectively. The crystallinity of the $SnO_2$ thin films was not much affected by an incorporation of Ag nanoparticles and MWNTs. In the case of mixed incorporation with Ag nanoparticles and MWNTs, the sheet resistance of $SnO_2$ thin films decreased relative to incorporation of either single component. Valence band spectral analyses of the nano-hybridized $SnO_2$ thin films showed a relation between band structural change and electrical resistance. Direct-patterning of $SnO_2$ hybrid films with a line-width of 30 ${\mu}m$ was successfully performed without photoresist or dry etching. These results suggest that a micro-patterned system can be simply fabricated, and the electrical properties of $SnO_2$ films can be improved by incorporating Ag nanoparticles and MWNTs.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.161-167
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• 2013

The ZnO thin films were grown on GaN template substrates by RF magnetron sputtering at different RF powers and n-ZnO/p-GaN heterojunction LEDs were fabricated to investigate the effect of the RF power on the characteristics of the n-ZnO/p-GaN LEDs. For the growth of the ZnO thin films, the substrate temperature was kept constant at $200^{\circ}C$ and the RF power was varied within the range of 200 to 500W at different growth times to deposit films of 100 nm thick. The electrical, optical and structural properties of ZnO thin films were investigated by ellipsometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), photoluminescence (PL) and by assessing the Hall effect. The characteristics of the n-ZnO/p-GaN LEDs were evaluated by current-voltage (I-V) and electroluminescence (EL) measurements. ZnO thin films were grown with a preferred c-axis orientation along the (0002) plane. The XRD peaks shifted to low angles and the surface roughness became non-uniform with an increase in the RF power. Also, the PL emission peak was red-shifted. The carrier density and the mobility decreased with the RF power. For the n-ZnO/p-GaN LED, the forward current at 20 V decreased and the threshold voltage increased with the RF power. The EL emission peak was observed at approximately 435 nm and the luminescence intensity decreased. Consequently, the crystallinity of the ZnO thin films grown with RF sputtering powers were improved. However, excess Zn affected the structural, electrical and optical properties of the ZnO thin films when the optimal RF power was exceeded. This excess RF power will degrade the characteristics of light emitting devices.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.11 s.294
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• pp.688-692
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• 2006

Ferroelectric lanthanides-substituted $Bi_4Ti_3O_{12}$ $(Bi_{4-x}Ln_xTi_3O_{12}, BLnT)$ thin films approximately 200 nm in thickness were deposited by metal organic chemical vapor deposition onto Pt(111)/Ti/SiO$_2$/Si(100) substrates. Many researchers reported that the lanthanides substitution for Bi in the pseudo-perovskite layer caused the distortion of TiO$_6$ octahedron in the a-b plane accompanied with a shift of the octahedron along the a-axis. In this study, the effect of lanthanides (Ln=Pr, Eu, Gd, Dy)-substitution and crystallization temperature on their ferroelectric properties of bismuth titanate $(Bi_4Ti_3O_{12}, BIT)$ thin films were investigated. As BLnT thin films were substituted to lanthanide elements (Pr, Eu, Gd, Dy) with a smaller ionic radius, the remnant polarization (2P$_r$) values had a tendency to increase and made an exception of the Eu-substituted case because $Bi_{4-x}Eu_xTi_3O_{12}$ (BET) thin films had the smaller grain sizes than the others. In this study, we confirmed that better ferroelectric properties can be expected for films composed of larger grains in bismuth layered peroskite materials. The crystallinity of the thin films was improved and the average grain size increased as the crystallization temperature,increased from 600 to 720$^{\circ}C$. Moreover, the BLnT thin film capacitor is characterized by well-saturated polarization-electric field (P-E) curves with an increase in annealing temperature. The BLnT thin films exhibited no significant degradation of switching charge for at least up to $1.0\times10^{11}$ switching cycles at a frequency of 1 MHz. From these results, we can suggest that the BLnT thin films are the suitable dielectric materials for ferroelectric random access memory applications.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2010

The effects of $O_2$ plasma pretreatment on the properties of Ga-doped ZnO films on PET substrate were studied. GZO films were fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering process. To improve surface energy and adhesion between the PET substrate and the GZO film, $O_2$ plasma pretreatment process was used prior to GZO sputtering. As the RF power and the treatment time increased, the crystallinity increased and the contact angle decreased significantly. When the RF power was 100 W and the treatment time was 600 sec in $O_2$ plasma pretreatment process, the resistivity of GZO films on the PET substrate was $1.90{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$.