• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.650-650
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• 2013

Although imprinted nanopatterns of organic polymer can be modified by the heat treatment [1], it generally requires high process temperatures and is material-dependent since the heat-induced mass loss of the organic polymer is greatly affected by its chemical characteristics. When oxygen is added during the annealing process, one can reduce the process temperature as well as the dependence of the materials. With the oxygen, line width reduction of a polymer (SU-8) patterns could be accomplished at temperature of as low as $250^{\circ}C$ which was not possible in the heat only process. This oxidative line width reduction can be dramatically promoted with the introduction of oxygen plasma. The oxygen plasma, with its highly-reactive oxygen species, vigorously etches away the organic materials, proven to be extremely effective line with reduction method. It is, however, very hard to control the extent and homogeneity of the etching, particularly of very fine patterns. Here, we report an effective and reliable line width reduction method of imprinted nanopatterns by combined plasma and heat treatment. The merits of this process include the reduction of process temperature, time and material-dependence.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.60-65
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• 2011

A low temperature plasma carburizing process was performed on AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel to achieve an enhancement of the surface hardness without degradation of its corrosion resistance. Attempts were made to investigate the influence of the processing temperatures on the surface hardened layer during low temperature plasma carburizing in order to obtain the optimum processing conditions. The expanded austenite (${\gamma}_c$) phase, which contains a high saturation of carbon (S phase), was formed on all of the treated surfaces. Precipitates of chromium carbides were detected in the hardened layer (C-enriched layer) only for the specimen treated at $550^{\circ}C$. The hardened layer thickness of ${\gamma}_c$ increased up to about $65{\mu}m$ with increasing treatment temperature. The surface hardness reached about 900 $HK_{0.05}$, which is about 4 times higher than that of the untreated sample (250 $HK_{0.05}$). A minor loss in corrosion resistance was observed for the specimens treated at temperatures of $300^{\circ}C{\sim}450^{\circ}C$ compared with untreated austenitic stainless steel. In particular, the precipitation of chromium carbides at $550^{\circ}C$ led to a significant decrease in the corrosion resistance. A diamond-like carbon (DLC) film coating was applied to improve the wear and friction properties of the S phase layer. The DLC film showed a low and stable friction coefficient value of about 0.1 compared with that of the carburized surface (about 0.45). The hardness and corrosion resistance of the S phase layer were further improved by the application of such a DLC film.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.308-318
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• 2022

The surface modification and treatment using thermal plasma were reviewed in academic fields. In general, thermal plasma is generated by direct current (DC) and radiofrequency (RF) power sources. Thermal spray coating, a typical commercial process using thermal plasma, is performed by DC thermal plasma, whereas other promising surface modifications have been reported and developed using RF thermal plasma. Beyond the thermal spray coating, physical and chemical surface modifications were attempted widely. Superhydrophobic surface treatment has a very high industrial demand particularly. Besides, RF thermal plasma system for large-area film surface treatment is being developed. Thermal plasma is especially suitable for the surface modification of low-dimensional nanomaterial (e.g., nanotubes) by utilizing high temperature and rapid quenching. It is able to synthesize and modify nanomaterials simultaneously in a one-pot process.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.378-383
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• 2001

An out line of the material process with using the atmospheric pressure glow plasma is described as follows : (1) TiO powder coating with SiO$_2$ (2) Surface treatment of Fluorinated polymers and (3) Surface cleaning of electronic circuit board with using splay type.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.32-38
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• 2021

We developed an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etcher for GaN etching using a parallel plasma electrode source with a multifunctional chuck matched to it in order for the low power consumption and low process cost in comparison with the conventional ICP system with a helical-type plasma electrode source. The optimization process condition using it for the micro light-emitting diode (µ-LED) chip fabrication was established, which is an ICP RF power of 300 W, a chuck power of 200 W, a BCl₃/Cl₂ gas ratio of 3:2. Under this condition, the mesa structure with the etch depth over 1 ㎛ and the etch angle over 75° and also with no etching residue was obtained for the µ-LED chip. The developed ICP showed the improved values on the process pressure, the etch selectivity, the etch depth uniformity, the etch angle profile and the substrate temperature uniformity in comparison with the commercial ICP. The µ-LED chip fabricated using the developed ICP showed the similar or improved characteristics in the L-I-V measurements compared with the one fabricated using the conventional ICP method

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.17-20
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• 2015

The physical effects of H-plasma treatment on ZnO thin film have been studied using photoluminescence(PL) spectroscopy. Four characteristic peaks have been identified: (i) $D^0X$ peak (neutral donor-bound exciton), showing relatively small integrated intensity after H-plasma treatment, indicates that H-plasma passivates the neutral donors in ZnO at low temperatures. The rapid decrease in the integrated intensity of the peak as the temperature goes up is considered to be due to the ionization of neutral donors. (ii) H-related complex-bound exciton peak appears at the low temperatures (10 K~80 K) after H-plasma treatment, showing the same thermal evolution as $D^0X$ peak. (iii) FX (free exciton) peak starts to show up at 60 K and grows more and more as the temperature goes up, which is considered to be related to the increase in free electron concentration in the film. (iv) violet band is intensified after H-plasma, which means more defects and impurities are generated by H-plasma process.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 2018

A plasma-catalytic combined process was used as an attempt to improve the conversion efficiency of nitrogen oxides ($NO_x$) over a wide temperature range ($150{\sim}500^{\circ}C$) to cope with the exhaust gas whose temperature varies greatly. Since the catalytic $NO_x$ reduction is effective at high temperatures where the activity of the catalyst itself is high, the $NO_x$ reduction was carried out without plasma generation in the high temperature region. On the other hand, in the low temperature region, the plasma was created in the catalyst bed to make up for the decreased catalytic activity, thereby increasing the $NO_x$ conversion efficiency. Effects of the types of catalysts, the reaction temperature, the concentration of the reducing agent (n-heptane), and the energy density on $NO_x$ conversion efficiency were examined. As a result of comparative analysis of various catalysts, the catalytic $NO_x$ conversion efficiency in the high temperature region was the highest in the case of the $Ag-Zn/{\gamma}-Al_2O_3$ catalyst of more than 90%. In the low temperature region, $NO_x$ was hardly removed by the hydrocarbon selective reduction process, but when the plasma was generated in the catalyst bed, the $NO_x$ conversion sharply increased to about 90%. The $NO_x$ conversion can be maintained high at temperatures of $150{\sim}500^{\circ}C$ by the combination of plasma in accordance with the temperature change of the exhaust gas.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
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• v.34D no.3
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• pp.87-92
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• 1997

Inductively coupled Cl$_{2}$ plasma has been studied to etch Pt thin films, which hardly form volatile compound with any reactive gas at normal process temperature. Low etch rate and residue problems are frequently observed. For higher etch rate, high density plasma and higher process temperature is adopted observed. For higher etch rate, high density plasma and higher process temperature is adopted and thus SiO$_{2}$ is used as for patterning mask instead of photoresist. The effect of O$_{2}$ or Ar addition to Cl$_{2}$ was investigated, and the chamber pressure, gas flow rate, surce RF power and bias RF power are also varied to check their effects on etch rate and selectivity. The major etching mechanism is the physical sputtering, but the ion assisted chemical raction is also found to be a big factor. The proposs can be optimized to obtain the etch rate of Pt up to 200nm/min and selectivity to SiO$_{2}$ at 2.0 or more. Patterning of submicron Pt lines are successfully demonstrated.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.257-264
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• 2023

Ti-6Al-4V alloys are mainly used as dental materials due to their excellent biocompatibility, corrosion resistance, and chemical stability. However, they have a low bioactivity with bioinertness in the body. Therefore, they could not directly bond with human bone. To improve their applications, their bone bonding ability and bone formation capacity should be improved. Thus, the objective of this study was to improve the bioinert surface of titanium alloy substrate to show bioactive characteristics by performing surface modification using wollastonite powder. Commercial bioactive wollastonite powder was successfully deposited onto Ti-6Al-4V alloy using a room temperature spray process. It was found that wollastonite-coated layer showed homogeneous microstructure and uniform thickness. Corrosion resistance of Ti-6Al-4V alloy was also improved by plasma electrolytic oxidation treatment. Its wettability and bioactivity were also greatly increased by wollastonite coating. Results of this study indicate that both plasma electrolytic oxidation treatment and wollastonite coating by room temperature spray process could be used to improve surface bioactivity of Ti-6Al-4V alloy substrate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.472-472
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• 2011

The capacitive coupled plasma (CCP) has been extensively used in the semiconductor industry because it has not only good uniformity, but also low electron temperature. But CCP source has some problems, such as difficulty in varying the ion bombardment energy separately, low plasma density, and high processing pressure, etc. In this reason, dual frequency CCP has been investigated with a separate substrate biasing to control the plasma parameters and to obtain high etch rate with high etch selectivity. Especially, in this study, we studied on the etching of $SiO_2$ by using the pulse-time modulation in the dual-frequency CCP source composed of 60 MHz/ 2 MHz rf power. By using the combination of high /low rf powers, the differences in the gas dissociation, plasma density, and etch characteristics were investigated. Also, as the size of the semiconductor device is decreased to nano-scale, the etching of contact hole which has nano-scale higher aspect ratio is required. For the nano-scale contact hole etching by using continuous plasma, several etch problems such as bowing, sidewall taper, twist, mask faceting, erosion, distortions etc. occurs. To resolve these problems, etching in low process pressure, more sidewall passivation by using fluorocarbon-based plasma with high carbon ratio, low temperature processing, charge effect breaking, power modulation are needed. Therefore, in this study, to resolve these problems, we used the pulse-time modulated dual-frequency CCP system. Pulse plasma is generated by periodical turning the RF power On and Off state. We measured the etch rate, etch selectivity and etch profile by using a step profilometer and SEM. Also the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic analysis on the surfaces etched by different duty ratio conditions correlate with the results above.