• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.130.2-130.2
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• 2013

Today, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of hydrocarbon gases has been demonstrated as an attractive method to synthesize large-area graphene layers. However, special care should be taken to precisely control the resulting graphene layers in CVD due to its sensitivity to various process parameters. Therefore, a facile synthesis to grow graphene layers with high controllability will have great advantages for scalable practical applications. In order to simplify and create efficiency in graphene synthesis, the graphene growth by thermal annealing process has been discussed by several groups. However, the study on growth mechanism and the detailed structural and optoelectronic properties in the resulting graphene films have not been reported yet, which will be of particular interest to explore for the practical application of graphene. In this study, we report the growth of few-layer, large-area graphene films using rapid thermal annealing (RTA) without the use of intentional carbon-containing precursor. The instability of nickel films in air facilitates the spontaneous formation of ultrathin (<2~3 nm) carbon- and oxygen-containing compounds on a nickel surface and high-temperature annealing of the nickel samples results in the formation of few-layer graphene films with high crystallinity. From annealing temperature and ambient studies during RTA, it was found that the evaporation of oxygen atoms from the surface is the dominant factor affecting the formation of graphene films. The thickness of the graphene layers is strongly dependent on the RTA temperature and time and the resulting films have a limited thickness less than 2 nm even for an extended RTA time. The transferred films have a low sheet resistance of ~380 ${\Omega}/sq$, with ~93% optical transparency. This simple and potentially inexpensive method of synthesizing novel 2-dimensional carbon films offers a wide choice of graphene films for various potential applications.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.11
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• pp.1646-1649
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• 2012

The $O_2$ annealing technique has considerably suppressed the leakage current of GaN power devices, but this forms NiO at Ni-based Schottky contact with increasing on-resistance. The purpose of the present study was to fabricate 1.5 kV GaN Schottky barrier diodes by improving $O_2$-annealing process and GaN buffer. The proposed $O_2$ annealing performed after alloying ohmic contacts in order to avoid NiO construction. The ohmic contact resistance ($R_C$) was degraded from 0.43 to $3.42{\Omega}-mm$ after $O_2$ annealing at $800^{\circ}C$. We can decrease RC by lowering temperature of $O_2$ annealing. The isolation resistance of test structure which indicated the surface and buffer leakage current was significantly increased from $2.43{\times}10^7$ to $1.32{\times}10^{13}{\Omega}$ due to $O_2$ annealing. The improvement of isolation resistance can be caused by formation of group-III oxides on the surface. The leakage current of GaN Schottky barrier diode was also suppressed from $2.38{\times}10^{-5}$ to $1.68{\times}10^{-7}$ A/mm at -100 V by $O_2$ annealing. The GaN Schottky barrier diodes achieved the high breakdown voltage of 700, 1400, and 1530 V at the anode-cathode distance of 5, 10, and $20{\mu}m$, respectively. The optimized $O_2$ annealing and $4{\mu}m$-thick C-doped GaN buffer obtained the high breakdown voltage at short drift length. The proposed $O_2$ annealing is suitable for next-generation GaN power switches due to the simple process and the low the leakage current.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.52-59
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• 2002

The thermo-mechanical characteristics of high temperature NITINOL shape memory alloy were evaluated using DSC with small samples and DMA with three-point bending specimens. The shape memory alloy of 54.4Ni/45.5Ti wt.% was used so that the phase transformation temperatures were in the range of 50~11$0^{\circ}C$. Two types of sample were tested in the experiments corresponding to as-received and annealed conditions. Simple beam bending theory was used to calculate the dynamic moduli of the shape memory alloy. According to the results, a large discrepancy in transformation temperatures was found between DSC and DMA techniques. Annealing treatment was found to suppress the R-phase transformation during cooling and the secondary plateau in the austenite transformation. Such a heat treatment was also significantly influenced to raise the transformation temperatures and the moduli of the shape memory alloy.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.46-50
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• 2002

Soft magnetic Mumetal thin film was fabricated under magnetic field at various substrate temperatures. High vacuum annealing was carried out at 200$\^{C}$ during 1 hr. The in-plane anisotropy of Mumetal thin film was determined from hysteresis loops measured by VSM when the sample axis varied from the field direction from 0°to 180°. As the substrate temperature increases, the coercivity in easy direction decreases, but uniaxial anisotropy deviates from the field direction. After vacuum annealing at 200$\^{C}$ for 1 hr, the uniaxial anisotropy is improved irrespective of substrate temperature. When the substrate temperature was 50$\^{C}$, the anisotropy field is 4.3 Oe. As the substrate temperature increases anisotropy field decreases. Uniaxial anisotropy of Mumetal thin film was formed best at 50$\^{C}$ before and after annealing.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.47-51
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• 2015

To achieve a high tunneling magneto resistance (TMR) of sputtered magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with an MgO barrier, the annealing process is indispensable. The structural and compositional changes as consequences of the annealing greatly affect the spin-dependent transport properties of MTJs. Higher TMR could be obtained for MTJs annealed at higher annealing temperature. The diffusion of Ru, Mn and/or Ta in the MTJs may occur during annealing process, which is known to be detrimental to spin-dependent tunneling effect. The rapid thermal annealing (RTA) process was used for annealing the MTJs with synthetic antiferromagnets. To suppress the diffusion of Mn, Ru and/or Ta in the MTJs, the process time and temperature of RTA were minutely controlled.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.235-241
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• 2005

Thermal creep properties of the advanced zirconium fuel claddings named by HANA alloys which were developed for high burn-up application were evaluated. The creep test of HANA cladding tubes was carried out by the internal pressurization method in temperature range from 350 to $400^{\circ}C$ and in the hoop stress range from 100 to 150 MPa. Creep tests were lasted up to 800 days, which showed the steady-state secondary creep rate. The creep resistance of HANA fuel claddings was affected by final annealing temperature and various factors, such as alloying element, applied stress and testing temperature. From the results the microstructure observation of the samples before and after creep test by using TEM, the dislocation density was increased in the sample of after creep test. The Sn as an alloying element was more effective in the creep resistance than other elements such as Nb, Fe, Cr and Cu due to solute hardening effect of Sn. In case of HANA fuel claddings, the improved creep resistance was obtained by the control of final heat treatment temperature as well as alloying element.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.230-236
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• 2023

The current study deals with the effect of cooling rate and temperature for annealing on medium-carbon Cr-Mo alloy steel, especially for cold heading quality wire rod, to derive the optimum micro-structures for plastic deformation. This is to optimize the spheroidization heat treatment conditions for softening the material. Heat treatment was performed under seven different conditions at a temperature between A_c1 and A_c3, mostly within 720℃ to 760℃, and the main variables at this time were temperature, retention time and cooling rate. Microstructure and phase changes were observed for each test condition, and it was confirmed that they were greatly affected by the cooling rate. It was also confirmed that the cooling rate was changed in the range of 0.1℃/min to 5℃/min and affected by phase deformation and spheroidization fraction. The larger the spheroidization fraction, the lower the hardness, which is associated with the increasing connection of ferrite phases.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.373-373
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• 2014

Resistive-change random access memory (ReRAM) device is one of the promising candidates owing to its simple structure, high scalability potential and low power operation. Many resistive switching devices using transition metal oxides materials such as NiO, Al2O3, ZnO, HfO2, $TiO_2$, have attracting increased attention in recent years as the next-generation nonvolatile memory. Among various transition metal oxides materials, HfO2 has been adopted as the gate dielectric in advanced Si devices. For this reason, it is advantageous to develop an HfO2-based ReRAM devices to leverage its compatibility with Si. However, the annealing temperature of these high-k thin films for a suitable resistive memory switching is high, so there are several reports for low temperature process including microwave irradiation. In this paper, we demonstrate the bipolar resistive switching characteristics in the microwave irradiation annealing processed Ag/HfO2/Pt ReRAM device. Compared to the as-deposited Ag/HfO2/Pt device, highly improved uniformity of resistance values and operating voltage were obtained from the micro wave annealing processed HfO2 ReRAM device. In addition, a stable DC endurance (>100 cycles) and a high data retention (>104 sec) were achieved.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.19-19
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• 2009

TiNxOy/TiNx multilayer thin films with a high resistance (~ k$Omega$) were deposited on SiO2/Si substrates at room temperature by sputtering. The TiNx thin films show island and smooth surface morphology in samples prepared by dc and rf magnetron sputtering, respectively. TiNxOy/TiNx multilayer has been developed to control temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) by the incorporation of TiNx layer (positive TCR) inserted into TiNxOy layers(negative TCR). Electrical and structural properties of sputtered TiNxOy/TiNx multilayer films were investigated as a function of annealing temperature. In order to achieve a stable high resistivity, multilayer films were annealed at various temperatures in oxygen ambient. Samples annealed at 700 oC for 1 min exhibit a good TCR value and a stable high resistivity.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.565-569
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• 2006

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD) is a well established technique for the deposition of hydrogenated film of silicon nitride (SiNx:H), which is commonly used as an antireflection coating as well as passivating layer in crystalline silicon solar cell. PECVD-SiNx:H films were investigated by varying the deposition and annealing conditions to optimize for the application in silicon solar cells. By varying the gas ratio (ammonia to silane), the silicon nitride films of refractive indices 1.85 - 2.45 were obtained. The film deposited at $450^{\circ}C$ showed the best carrier lifetime through the film deposition rate was not encouraging. The film deposited with the gas ratio of 0.57 showed the best carrier lifetime after annealing at a temperature of $800^{\circ}C$. The single crystalline silicon solar cells fabricated in conventional industrial production line applying the optimized film deposition and annealing conditions on large area substrate of size $125mm{\times}125mm$ (pseudo square) was found to have the conversion efficiencies as high as 17.05 %. Low cost and high efficiency silicon solar cells fabrication sequence has also been explained in this paper.