• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.95-109
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• 2009

A low temperature plasma process has been widely used for semiconductor fabrication and can also be applied for the preparation of solar cell, MEMS or NEMS, but they are notorious in the point of particle contamination. The nano-sized particles can be generated in the low temperature plasma process and they can induce several serious defects on the performance and quality of microelectronic devices and also on the cost of final products. For the preparation of high quality thin films of high efficiency by the low temperature plasma process, it is desirable to increase the deposition rate of thin films with reducing the particle contamination in the plasmas. In this paper, we introduced the studies on the generation and growth of nanoparticles in the low temperature plasmas and tried to introduce the recent interesting studies on nanoparticle generation in the plasma reactors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.253-253
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• 2012

Low temperature SiOx film process has being required for both silicon and oxide (IGZO) based low temperature thin film transistor (TFT) for application of flexible display. In recent decades, from low density and high pressure such as capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) type plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) to the high density plasma and low pressure such as inductively coupled plasma (ICP) and electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) have been used to researching to obtain high quality silicon oxide (SiOx) thin film at low temperature. However, these plasma deposition devices have limitation of controllability of process condition because process parameters of plasma deposition such as RF power, working pressure and gas ratio influence each other on plasma conditions which non-leanly influence depositing thin film. In compared to these plasma deposition devices, neutral beam assisted chemical vapor deposition (NBaCVD) has advantage of independence of control parameters. The energy of neutral beam (NB) can be controlled independently of other process conditions. In this manner, we obtained NB dependent high crystallized intrinsic and doped silicon thin film at low temperature in our another papers. We examine the properties of the low temperature processed silicon oxide thin films which are fabricated by the NBaCVD. NBaCVD deposition system consists of the internal inductively coupled plasma (ICP) antenna and the reflector. Internal ICP antenna generates high density plasma and reflector generates NB by auger recombination of ions at the surface of metal reflector. During deposition of silicon oxide thin film by using the NBaCVD process with a tungsten reflector, the energetic Neutral Beam (NB) that controlled by the reflector bias believed to help surface reaction. Electrical and structural properties of the silicon oxide are changed by the reflector bias, effectively. We measured the breakdown field and structure property of the Si oxide thin film by analysis of I-V, C-V and FTIR measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.486-491
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• 2008

The plasma processing is applied to many industrial fields as thin film deposition or surface treatment technique. In this study, we investigated large-area uniformed surface treatment of PET film at low temperature by using Scanning Plasma Method(SPM). Then, we measured difference and distribution of temperature on film's surface by setting up a thermometer. We studied the condition of plasma for surface treatment by examining intensity of irradiation of uniformed plasma. And we compared contact angles of treated PET film by using Ar and $O_2$ plasma based low temperature. In our result, surface temperature of 3-point of treating is low temperature about $22^{\circ}C$, in other hands, there is scarcely any variation of temperature on film's surface. And by using Ar plasma treatment, contact angle is lower than untreatment or $O_2$ plasma treatment. In case of PET film having thermal weak point, low temperature processing using SPM is undamaged method in film's surface and uniformly treated film's surface. As a result, Ar plasma surface treatment using SPM is suitable surface treatment method of PET film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.248-248
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• 2012

Synthesis graphene on Cu substrate by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) is investigated and its quality's affection factors are discussed in this work. Compared with the graphene synthesized at high temperature in chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the low-temperature graphene film by PE-CVD has relatively low quality with many defects. However, the advantage of low-temperature is also obvious that low melting point materials will be available to synthesize graphene as substrate. In this study, the temperature will be kept constant in $400^{\circ}C$ and the graphene was grown in plasma environment with changing the plasma power, the flow rate of precursors, and the distance between plasma generator coil and substrates. Then, we investigate the effect of temperature and the influence of process variables to graphene film's quality and characterize the film properties with Raman spectroscopy and sheet resistance and optical emission spectroscopy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.24-32
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• 2005

Various types of plasma source applied in $CH_4$ decomposition process are compared. DBD by pulse and AC power, spark by pulse and AC power, rotating arc and hollow cathode plasma are chosen to be compared. The results show that $CH_4$ conversion per given unit power is relatively high in hollow cathode plasma and rotating arc that induces rather high temperature condition and that is why both thermal dehydration and plasma induced decomposition contribute for the overall process. In case of DBD wherein high temperature electron and low temperature gas molecule coexist, the process shows low conversion rate, for in rather low temperature condition the contribution of thermal dehydration is lowered. Selectivity of $C_2H_6$ and $C_2H_2$ is shown to be a good parameter of the relative contribution of plasma chemistry in the overall process. From the results we concluded that required condition of plasma source for a cost effective and high yield $CH_4$ decomposition is to have characteristics of both thermal plasma and non thermal plasma in which temperature is high above a certain threshold state for thermal dehydration and electron induced collision is maximized in the same breath.

• Current Applied Physics
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.1436-1440
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• 2018

SiN and SiCN film production using plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) is investigated in this study. A developed high-power and high-density multiple inductively coupled plasma (multi-ICP) source is used for a low temperature PE-ALD process. High plasma density and good uniformity are obtained by high power $N_2$ plasma discharge. Silicon nitride films are deposited on a 300-mm wafer using the PE-ALD method at low temperature. To analyze the quality of the SiN and SiCN films, the wet etch rate, refractive index, and growth rate of the thin films are measured. Experiments are performed by changing the applied power and the process temperature ($300-500^{\circ}C$).

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.133-138
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• 2017

We investigated the interface defect engineering and reaction mechanism of reduced transition layer and nitride layer in the active plasma process on 4H-SiC by the plasma reaction with the rapid processing time at the room temperature. Through the combination of experiment and theoretical studies, we clearly observed that advanced active plasma process on 4H-SiC of oxidation and nitridation have improved electrical properties by the stable bond structure and decrease of the interfacial defects. In the plasma oxidation system, we showed that plasma oxide on SiC has enhanced electrical characteristics than the thermally oxidation and suppressed generation of the interface trap density. The decrease of the defect states in transition layer and stress induced leakage current (SILC) clearly showed that plasma process enhances quality of $SiO_2$ by the reduction of transition layer due to the controlled interstitial C atoms. And in another processes, the Plasma Nitridation (PN) system, we investigated the modification in bond structure in the nitride SiC surface by the rapid PN process. We observed that converted N reacted through spontaneous incorporation the SiC sub-surface, resulting in N atoms converted to C-site by the low bond energy. In particular, electrical properties exhibited that the generated trap states was suppressed with the nitrided layer. The results of active plasma oxidation and nitridation system suggest plasma processes on SiC of rapid and low temperature process, compare with the traditional gas annealing process with high temperature and long process time.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.93-93
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• 2016

Large scale integrated circuits (LSIs) has been improved by the shrinkage of the circuit dimensions. The smaller chip sizes and increase in circuit density require the miniaturization of the line-width and space between metal interconnections. Therefore, an extreme precise control of the critical dimension and pattern profile is necessary to fabricate next generation nano-electronics devices. The pattern profile control of plasma etching with an accuracy of sub-nanometer must be achieved. To realize the etching process which achieves the problem, understanding of the etching mechanism and precise control of the process based on the real-time monitoring of internal plasma parameters such as etching species density, surface temperature of substrate, etc. are very important. For instance, it is known that the etched profiles of organic low dielectric (low-k) films are sensitive to the substrate temperature and density ratio of H and N atoms in the H2/N2 plasma [1]. In this study, we introduced a feedback control of actual substrate temperature and radical density ratio monitored in real time. And then the dependence of etch rates and profiles of organic films have been evaluated based on the substrate temperatures. In this study, organic low-k films were etched by a dual frequency capacitively coupled plasma employing the mixture of H2/N2 gases. A 100-MHz power was supplied to an upper electrode for plasma generation. The Si substrate was electrostatically chucked to a lower electrode biased by supplying a 2-MHz power. To investigate the effects of H and N radical on the etching profile of organic low-k films, absolute H and N atom densities were measured by vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy [2]. Moreover, using the optical fiber-type low-coherence interferometer [3], substrate temperature has been measured in real time during etching process. From the measurement results, the temperature raised rapidly just after plasma ignition and was gradually saturated. The temporal change of substrate temperature is a crucial issue to control of surface reactions of reactive species. Therefore, by the intervals of on-off of the plasma discharge, the substrate temperature was maintained within ${\pm}1.5^{\circ}C$ from the set value. As a result, the temperatures were kept within $3^{\circ}C$ during the etching process. Then, we etched organic films with line-and-space pattern using this system. The cross-sections of the organic films etched for 50 s with the substrate temperatures at $20^{\circ}C$ and $100^{\circ}C$ were observed by SEM. From the results, they were different in the sidewall profile. It suggests that the reactions on the sidewalls changed according to the substrate temperature. The precise substrate temperature control method with real-time temperature monitoring and intermittent plasma generation was suggested to contribute on realization of fine pattern etching.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.433-433
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• 2013

Graphene, $sp^2$-hybridized 2-Dimension carbon material, has drawn enormous attention due to its desirable performance of excellent properties. Graphene can be applied for many electronic devices such as field-effect transistors (FETs), touch screen, solar cells. Furthermore, indium tin oxide (ITO) is commercially used and sets the standard for transparent electrode. However, ITO has certain limitations, such as increasing cost due to indium scarcity, instability in acid and basic environments, high surface roughness and brittle. Due to those reasons, graphene will be a perfect substitute as a transparent electrode. We report the graphene synthesized by inductive coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (ICP-PECVD) process on Cu substrate. The growth was carried out using low temperature at $400^{\circ}C$ rather than typical chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process at $1,000^{\circ}C$ The low-temperature process has advantage of low cost and also low melting point materials will be available to synthesize graphene as substrate, but the drawback is low quality. To improve the quality, the factor affect the quality of graphene was be investigated by changing the plasma power, the flow rate of precursors, the scenario of precursors. Then, graphene film's quality was investigated with Raman spectroscopy and sheet resistance and optical emission spectroscopy.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2000.06b
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• pp.302-305
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• 2000

It is important to control the electron energy distribution to have high quality plasma process. A conventional inductively coupled plasma(ICP) source with 13.56MHz power is not adequate for low damage sub-half micron patterning process due to higher electron temperature. Only the pulsed plasma technique seems to provide low electron temperature, and thus low process damage. Recently, a novel method proposed by us, named as ‘Enhanced-ICP’, which uses periodic weak axial magnetic field added to a normal ICP source, has shown great improvement in etch characteristics. changes of plasma characteristics according to the frequency of time-varying axial magnetic field have been observed by probe-time-averaged Langmuir probe.