• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.187-193
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• 2010

Chromium nitride (CrN) samples with two different layer structures (multilayer and single layer) were coated on bipolar plates of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) using the reactive sputtering method. The effects with respect to layer structure on corrosion resistance and overall cell performance were investigated. A continuous and thin chromium nitride layer ($Cr_{0.48}\;N_{0.52}$) was formed on the surface of the SUS 316L when the nitrogen flow rate was 10 sccm. The electrochemical stability of the coated layers was examined using the potentiodynamic and potentiostatic methods in the simulated corrosive circumstances of the PEMFC under $80^{\circ}C$. Interfacial contact resistance (ICR) between the CrN coated sample and the gas diffusion layer was measured by using Wang's method. A single cell performance test was also conducted. The test results showed that CrN coated SUS316L with multilayer structure had excellent corrosion resistance compared to single layer structures and single cell performance results with $25\;cm^2$ in effective area also showed the same tendency. The difference of the electrochemical properties between the single and multilayer samples was attributed to the Cr interlayer layer, which improved the corrosion resistance. Because the coating layer was damaged by pinholes, the Cr layer prevented the penetration of corrosive media into the substrate. Therefore, the CrN with a multilayer structure is an effective coating method to increase the corrosion resistance and to decrease the ICR for metallic bipolar plates in PEMFC.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.194-200
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• 2014

Metallic Cr film coatings of $1.2{\mu}m$ thickness were prepared by DC magnetron sputter deposition method on c-plane sapphire substrates. The thin Cr films were ammoniated during horizontal furnace thermal annealing for 10-240 min in $NH_3$ gas flow conditions between 400 and $900^{\circ}C$. After annealing, changes in the crystal phase and chemical constituents of the films were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis. Nitridation of the metallic Cr films begins at $500^{\circ}C$ and with further increases in annealing temperature not only chromium nitrides ($Cr_2N$ and CrN) but also chromium oxide ($Cr_2O_3$) was detected. The oxygen in the films originated from contamination during the film formation. With further increase of temperature above $800^{\circ}C$, the nitrogen species were sufficiently supplied to the film's surface and transformed to the single-phase of CrN. However, the CrN phase was only available in a very small process window owing to the oxygen contamination during the sputter deposition. From the XPS analysis, the atomic concentration of oxygen in the as-deposited film was about 40 at% and decreased to the value of 15 at% with increase in annealing temperature up to $900^{\circ}C$, while the nitrogen concentration was increased to 42 at%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.159-159
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• 2011

Among the semiconductor ternary compounds in the I-III-$VI_2$ series, $CulnS_2$ ($CulnSe_2$) are one of the promising materials for photovoltaic applications because of the suitability of their electrical and optical properties. The $CuInS_2$ thin film is one of I-III-$VI_2$ type semiconductors, which crystallizes in the chalcopyrite structure. Its direct band gap of 1.5 eV, high absorption coefficient and environmental viewpoint that $CuInS_2$ does not contain any toxic constituents make it suitable for terrestrial photovoltaic applications. A variety of techniques have been applied to deposit $CuInS_2$ thin films, such as single/double source evaporation, coevaporation, rf sputtering, chemical vapor deposition and chemical spray pyrolysis. This is the first report that $CuInS_2$ thin films have been prepared by Aerosol Jet Deposition (AJD) technique which is a novel and attractive method because thin films with high deposition rate can be grown at very low cost. In this study, $CuInS_2$ thin films have been prepared by Aerosol Jet Deposition (AJD) method which employs a nozzle expansion. The mixed fluid is expanded through the nozzle into the chamber evacuated in a lower pressure to deposit $CuInS_2$ films on Mo coated glass substrate. In this AJD system, the characteristics of $CuInS_2$ films are dependent on various deposition parameters, such as compositional ratio of precursor solution, flow rate of carrier gas, stagnation pressure, substrate temperature, nozzle shape, nozzle size and chamber pressure, etc. In this report, $CuInS_2$ thin films are deposited using the deposition parameters such as the compositional ratio of the precursor solution and the substrate temperature. The deposited $CuInS_2$ thin films will be analyzed in terms of deposition rate, crystal structure, and optical properties.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.580-585
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• 2013

To observe the formation of defects at the interface between an oxide semiconductor and $SiO_2$, ZnO was prepared on $SiO_2$ with various oxygen gas flow rates by RF magnetron sputtering deposition. The crystallinity of ZnO depends on the characteristic of the surface of the substrate. The crystallinity of ZnO on a Si wafer increased due to the activation of ionic interactions after an annealing process, whereas that of ZnO on $SiO_2$ changed due to the various types of defects which had formed as a result of the deposition conditions and the annealing process. To observe the chemical shift to understand of defect deformations at the interface between the ZnO and $SiO_2$, the O 1s electron spectra were convoluted into three sub-peaks by a Gaussian fitting. The O 1s electron spectra consisted of three peaks as metal oxygen (at 530.5 eV), $O^{2-}$ ions in an oxygen-deficient region (at 531.66 eV) and OH bonding (at 532.5 eV). In view of the crystallinity from the peak (103) in the XRD pattern, the metal oxygen increased with a decrease in the crystallinity. However, the low FWHM (full width at half maximum) at the (103) plane caused by the high crystallinity depended on the increment of the oxygen vacancies at 531.66 eV due to the generation of $O^{2-}$ ions in the oxygen-deficient region formed by thermal activation energy.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.168-174
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• 2016

A conductive oxide-based sapphire glass indium tin oxide/metal electrode and the optical coating, through patterning process was studied in excellent optical properties and integrated touch panel has a high strength. Indium tin oxide conductive oxides of the sapphire glass to 0.3 A at DC magnetron sputtering method of 10 min, gas flow Ar 10 Sccm Ar, $O_2$ 1.0 Sccm the formation conditions of the thin film after annealing at $550^{\circ}C$ for 30min was achieved through a 86% transmittance. In addition, the coating 130 nm hollow silica sol-gel was to improve the optical transmittance of the indium tin oxide to 91%. For the measurement by the modeling hollow silica sol by Macleod simulation and calculated the average values of silica part to the presence or absence in analogy to actual. Refractive index value and the actual value of the material on the simulation the transmittance difference is it does not completely match the air region similar to the actual value (transmission) could be confirmed that the measurement is set to a value of between 5 nm and 10 nm.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.637-643
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• 2009

In this study, we analyzed the effect of silicon oxynitride matrix on the optical properties of Au nanoparticles dispersed on composite film and explored the effectiveness of the silicon in fine tuning the refractive index of the composite film for applications in optical waveguide devices. The atomic fraction of nitrogen in $SiO_xN_y$ films was controlled by varying the relative flow ratio of nitrogen gas in reactive sputtering and was evaluated optically using an effective medium theory with Bruggeman geometry consisting of a random mixture between $SiO_2$ and $Si_3N_4$. The Au nanoparticles were embedded in the $SiO_xN_y$ matrix by employing the alternating deposition technique and clearly showed an absorption peak due to the excitation of surface plasmon. With increasing nitrogen atomic fraction in the matrix, the surface plasmon resonance wavelength shifted to a longer wavelength (a red-shift) with an enhanced resonance absorption. These characteristics were interpreted using the Maxwell-Garnett effective medium theory. The formation of a guided mode in a slab waveguide consisting of 3 $\mu$m thick Au:$SiO_xN_y$ nanocomposite film was confirmed at the telecommunication wavelength of 1550 nm by prism coupler method and compared with the case of using $SiO_2$ matrix. The use of $SiO_xN_y$ matrix provides an effective way of controlling the mode confinement while maintaining or even enhancing the surface plasmon resonance properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.448-448
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• 2010

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) has made a prominent progress in memory performance and has brought a bright prospect for the next generation nonvolatile memory technologies due to its excellent advantages. Dry etching process of magnetic thin films is one of the important issues for the magnetic devices such as magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs) based MRAM. CoFeB is a well-known soft ferromagnetic material, of particular interest for magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) and other devices based on tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR), such as spin-transfer-torque MRAM. One particular example is the CoFeB - MgO - CoFeB system, which has already been integrated in MRAM. In all of these applications, knowledge of control over the etching properties of CoFeB is crucial. Recently, transferring the pattern by using milling is a commonly used, although the redeposition of back-sputtered etch products on the sidewalls and the low etch rate of this method are main disadvantages. So the other method which has reported about much higher etch rates of >$50{\AA}/s$ for magnetic multi-layer structures using $Cl_2$/Ar plasmas is proposed. However, the chlorinated etch residues on the sidewalls of the etched features tend to severely corrode the magnetic material. Besides avoiding corrosion, during etching facets format the sidewalls of the mask due to physical sputtering of the mask material. Therefore, in this work, magnetic material such as CoFeB was etched in an ICP etching system using the gases which can be expected to form volatile metallo-organic compounds. As the gases, carbon monoxide (CO) and ammonia ($NH_3$) were used as etching gases to form carbonyl volatiles, and the etched features of CoFeB thin films under by Ta masking material were observed with electron microscopy to confirm etched resolution. And the etch conditions such as bias power, gas combination flow, process pressure, and source power were varied to find out and control the properties of magnetic layer during the process.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.333-341
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• 2012

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) thin films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering with different flow rates of $O_2$ gas from 0 to 12 sccm. Electrical and optical properties of these films were characterized and analyzed. ITO deposited on soda lime glass and RF power was 2 kW, frequency was 13.56 MHz, and working pressure was $1.0{\times}10^{-3}$ Torr, Ar gas was fixed at 1,000 sccm. The transmittance was measured at 300~1,100 nm ranges by using Photovoltaic analysis system. Electrical properties were measured by Hall measurement system. ITO thin films surface were measured by Scanning electron microscope. Atomic force microscope surface roughness scan for ITO thin films. ITO thin films secondary electron emission coefficient(${\gamma}$) was measured by ${\gamma}$-Focused ion beam. The resistivity is about $2.4{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and the weighted average transmittance is about 84.93% at 3 sccm oxygen flow rate. Also, we investigated Work-function of ITO thin films by using Auger neutralization mechanism according to secondary electron emission coefficient(${\gamma}$) values. We confirmed secondary electron emission peak at 3 sccm oxygen flow rate.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.599-604
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• 1998

We have investigated Pt and $RuO_2$ as a bottom electrode for ferroelectric capacitor applications. The bottom electrodes were prepared by using an RF magnetron sputtering method. Some of the investigated parameters were a substrate temperature, gas flow rate, RF power for the film growth, and post annealing effect. The substrate temperature strongly influenced the surface morphology and resistivity of the bottom electrodes as well as the film crystallographic structure. XRD results on Pt films showed a mixed phase of (111) and (200) peak for the substrate temperature ranged from RT to $200^{\circ}C$, and a preferred (111) orientation for $300^{\circ}C$. From the XRD and AFM results, we recommend the substrate temperature of $300^{\circ}C$ and RF power 80W for the Pt bottom electrode growth. With the variation of an oxygen partial pressure from 0 to 50%, we learned that only Ru metal was grown with 0~5% of $O_2$ gas, mixed phase of Ru and $RuO_2$ for $O_ 2$ partial pressure between 10~40%, and a pure $RuO_2$ phase with $O_2$ partial pressure of 50%. This result indicates that a double layer of $RuO_2/Ru$ can be grown in a process with the modulation of gas flow rate. Double layer structure is expected to reduce the fatigue problem while keeping a low electrical resistivity. As post anneal temperature was increased from RT to $700^{\circ}C$, the resistivity of Pt and $RuO_2$ was decreased linearly. This paper presents the optimized process conditions of the bottom electrodes for memory device applications.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.16-19
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• 2019

A thinner film has superior electrical properties and a better amorphous structure. Amorphous structures can be effective in improving conductivity through a depletion effect. Research is needed on the Schottky contact, where potential barriers are formed, as a way to identify these characteristics. $SiO_2/SnO_2$ thin films were prepared to examine the amorphous structure and Schottky contact, $SiO_2$ thin films were prepared using Ar = 20 sccm. $SnO_2$ thin films were deposited using mixed gas with a flow rate of argon and oxygen at 20 sccm, and $SnO_2$ thin films were added by magnetron sputtering and treated at $100^{\circ}C$ and $150^{\circ}C$. To identify the conditions under which the amorphous structure was constructed, the XRD patterns were investigated and C-V and I-V measurements were taken to make Al electrodes and perform electrical analysis. The depletion layer was formed by the recombination of electrons and holes through the heat treatment process. $SiO_2/SnO_2$ thin films confirmed that the pores were well formed when heat treated at $100^{\circ}C$ and an electric current was applied over the micro area. An amorphous $SiO_2/SnO_2$ thin film with heat treatment at $100^{\circ}C$ showed no reflection at $33^{\circ}\;2{\theta}$ in the XRD pattern, and a reflection at $44^{\circ}2\;{\theta}$. The macroscopic view (-30 V