• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.169-169
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• 2010

As display industry requires various applications for future display technology, which can guarantees high level of flexibility and transparency on display panel, oxide semiconductor materials are regarded as one of the best candidates. $InGaZnO_4$(IGZO) has gathered much attention as a post-transition metal oxide used in active layer in thin-film transistor. Due to its high mobility fabricated at low temperature fabrication process, which is proper for application to display backplanes and use in flexible and/or transparent electronics. Electrical performance of amorphous oxide semiconductors depends on the resistance of the interface between source/drain metal contact and active layer. It is also affected by sheet resistance on IGZO thin film. Controlling contact/sheet resistance has been a hot issue for improving electrical properties of AOS(Amorphous oxide semiconductor). To overcome this problem, post-annealing has been introduced. In other words, through post-annealing process, saturation mobility, on/off ratio, drain current of the device all increase. In this research, we studied on the relation between device's resistance and post-annealing temperature. So far as many post-annealing effects have been reported, this research especially analyzed the change of electrical properties by increasing post-annealing temperature. We fabricated 6 main samples. After a-IGZO deposition, Samples were post-annealed in 5 different temperatures; as-deposited, $100^{\circ}C$, $200^{\circ}C$, $300^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$ and $500^{\circ}C$. Metal deposition was done on these samples by using Mo through E-beam evaporation. For analysis, three analysis methods were used; IV-characteristics by probe station, surface roughness by AFM, metal oxidation by FE-SEM. Experimental results say that contact resistance increased because of the metal oxidation on metal contact and rough surface of a-IGZO layer. we can suggest some of the possible solutions to overcome resistance effect for the improvement of TFT electrical performances.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.103-108
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• 2004

High-quality ZnO films were grown on sapphire (001) substrates by the atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) technique using DEZn as a Zinc precusor and $H_2O $ as an oxidant at both $170^{\circ}C$ and $400^{\circ}C$ which are in the ALE and the CVD process temperature ranges, respectively. The films were annealed in an oxygen atmosphere in the temperature range from 600 to 100$0^{\circ}C$ for an hour and then investigate photoluminescence (PL) properties using He-Cd laser. PL intensity tends to increases as the annealing temperature increase for both the annealed ZnO films grown at $170^{\circ}C$ and $400^{\circ}C$ , while PL did not nearly occur at the as-deposited ones. The PL intensity of the ZnO film grown at $400^{\circ}C$ is low after it is annealed at high temperature owing to a large number of Zn-Zn bonds although it has increased in the visible light wavelength region after annealing. In contrast the PL intensity has increased significant in the visible light region after annealing

• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.13 no.spc1
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• pp.149-153
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• 2012

Ti2AlN MAX-phase films were synthesized through the post-annealing process of as-deposited Ti-Al-N films. Near amorphous or quasi-crystalline ternary Ti-Al-N films were deposited on Si and Al2O3 substrates by sputtering a Ti2AlN MAX-phase target at room temperature, 300 ℃ and 450 ℃, respectively. A vacuum annealing of those films at 800 ℃ for 1 hour changed those films to crystalline Ti2AlN MAX-phase. The polycrystalline Ti2AlN MAX-phase films exhibited very excellent oxidation resistance due to its characteristics microstructure (nanolaminates), which has potential applications for high-temperature protective coatings. The microstructure and composition of Ti2AlN MAX-phase films were investigated using with a variety of characterization tools.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.24-28
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• 2005

A typical method for obtaining poly-Si films is the solid phase crystallization(SPC) of amorphous Si. Advantages of SPC are uniformity, process quality and low cost of production. However, high process temperature and long process time prevent the employment of SPC process on thermally susceptible glass substrate. In this parer, we propose a new method that applies an alternating magnetic field during crystallization annealing in an alternating magnetic field crystallization(AMFC) system for lowering process temperature and shorter process time of SPC. When we crystallized, in the case of SPC, annealing time is 24 hours at 570℃. But in the case of AMFC, annealing time is only 20 minutes at the same temperature.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.117-124
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• 2007

The ITO films were deposited on glass substrates by RF-superimposed dc reactive magnetron sputtering and were annealed in $N_2$ vacuum furnace with temperatures in the range of $403K{\sim}573K$ for 30 minutes. Electrical, optical and structural properties of ITO films were examined with varying annealing temperatures from 403 K to 573 K. The resistivity of as-deposited ITO films was $5.4{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ at the sputter conditions of applied RF/DC power of 200/200 W, $O_{2}$ flow of 0.2 seem and Ar flow of 0.2 seem. As a result of annealing in the temperature range of $403K{\sim}573K$, the crystallization occurred at 423 K that is lower than the crystallization temperature caused by a conventional sputtering method. And the resistivity decreased from $5.4{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm\;to\;2.3{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$, the carrier concentration and mobility of ITO films increased from $4.9{\times}10^{20}/cm^3\;to\;6.4{\times}10^{20}/cm^3$, from $20.4cm^2/Vsec\;to\;41.0cm^2/Vsec$, respectively. The transmittance of ITO films in visible became higher than 90% when annealed in the temperature range of $423K{\sim}573K$. High quality ITO thin films made by RF-superimposed dc reactive magnetron sputtering and annealing in $N_2$ vacuum furnace will be applied to transparent conductive oxides of the advanced flat panel display.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.435-438
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• 2003

The effects of oxygen partial pressure and vacuum annealing on the electrical properties of sputtered vanadium oxide($VO_x$) thin films were investigated. The thin films were prepared by r.f. magnetron sputtering from $V_2O_5$ target in a gas mixture of argon and oxygen. The oxygen/(oxygen+argon) partial pressure ratio of 0% and 8% is adopted. Electrical properties of films sputter-deposited under different oxygen gas pressures and in situ annealed in vacuum at $400^{\circ}C$ for 1h and 4h are characterized through electrical conductivity measurements. I-V characteristics were distinguished between linear and nonlinear region. In the low field region the conduction is due to Schottky emission, while at high fields it changes to Fowler-Nordheim tunneling type conduction. The conductivity measurements have shown an Arrhenius dependence of the conductivity on the temperature.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07c
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• pp.1596-1598
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• 2002

This paper presents the characteristics of Ta-N thin-film strain gauges as high-temperature strain gauges, which were deposited on Si substrate by DC reactive magnetron sputtering in an argon-nitrogen atmosphere(Ar-($4{\sim}16%$)$N_2$). These films were annealed for 1 hour in $2{\times}10^{-6}$ Torr vacuum furnace range $500{\sim}1000^{\circ}C$. The optimized conditions of Ta-N thin-film strain gauges were annealing condition($900^{\circ}C$, 1 hr.) in 8% $N_2$ gas flow ratio deposition atmosphere. Under optimum conditions, the Ta-N thin-films for strain gauges is obtained a high resistivity, ${\rho}$=768.93 ${\mu}{\Omega}cm$, a low temperature coefficient of resistance, TCR = -84 ppm/$^{\circ}C$ and a high temporal stability with a good longitudinal gauge factor, GF = 4.12.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.273.2-273.2
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• 2014

Sputtering process has been widely used in Si-based semiconductor industry and it is also an ideal method to deposit transparent oxide materials for thin-film transistors (TFTs). The oxide films grown at low temperature by conventional RF sputtering process are typically amorphous state with low density including a large number of defects such as dangling bonds and oxygen vacancies. Those play a crucial role in the electron conduction in transparent electrode, while those are the origin of instability of semiconducting channel in oxide TFTs due to electron trapping. Therefore, post treatments such as high temperature annealing process have been commonly progressed to obtain high reliability and good stability. In this work, the scheme of electron-assisted RF sputtering process for high quality transparent oxide films was suggested. Through the additional electron supply into the plasma during sputtering process, the working pressure could be kept below $5{\times}10-4Torr$. Therefore, both the mean free path and the mobility of sputtered atoms were increased and the well ordered and the highly dense microstructure could be obtained compared to those of conventional sputtering condition. In this work, the physical properties of transparent oxide films such as conducting indium tin oxide and semiconducting indium gallium zinc oxide films grown by electron-assisted sputtering process will be discussed in detail. Those films showed the high conductivity and the high mobility without additional post annealing process. In addition, oxide TFT characteristics based on IGZO channel and ITO electrode will be shown.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.186-186
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• 2015

We have introduced multifunctional ITO single thin films formed by normal sputtering system equipped with a plasma limiter which effectively blocks the bombardment of energetic negative oxygen ions. MFSS ITO also possesses high gas diffusion barrier properties simultaneously low resistivity even it deposited at room temperature without post annealing on plastic substrate. Nano-crystalline enhancement by Ar energy has energy window from 20 to 30 eV under blocking NOI condition. Effect of blocking NOI and optimal Ar energy window enhancement facilitate that resistivity is minimized to $3.61{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ and the WVTR of 100 nm thick MFSS ITO is $3.9{\times}10^{-3}g/(m^2day)$ which is measured under environmental conditions of 90% relative humidity and 50oC that corresponds to a value of ${\sim}10^{-5}g/(m^2day)$ at room temperature. The multifunctional MFSS ITO with low resistivity, and low gas permeability will be highly valuable for plastic electronics applications.