• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.151-154
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• 2004

Issues of ferroelectric high-density memories (>64 Mb) indispensable for upcoming ubiquitous era have been on the cell integration less than $0.1\;\mu\textrm{m}^2$ and reliabilities. Thus nanoscale control of microstructures of ferroelectric films with large switching polarization has been one of the issues to obtain the uniform electrical properties for realization of high-density memories. In this study the grain orientations and distributions of BT-based films by spin-on coatings were examined by FEG-SEM/EBSD. Ferroelectric domain characteristics by PFM were also performed to study the dependence of reliabilities on the grain orientations and distributions. It is believed that understandings of the nucleation and growth mechanisms of the a- or b-axis oriented films during the thermal processes such as RTA and furnace annealing affecting on grain orientation and uniformity could be possible based on our experimental results.

• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.484-489
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• 2019

VO2 is an attractive candidate as a transition metal oxide switching material as a selection device for reduction of sneak-path current. We demonstrate deposition of nanoscale VO2 thin films via thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD) with H2O reactant. Using this method, we demonstrate VO2 thin films with high-quality characteristics, including crystallinity, reproducibility using X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurement. We also present a method that can increase uniformity and thin film quality by splitting the pulse cycle into two using scanning electron microscope measurement. We demonstrate an ON / OFF ratio of about 40, which is caused by metal insulator transition (MIT) of VO2 thin film. ALD-deposited VO2 films with high film uniformity can be applied to next-generation nonvolatile memory devices with high density due to their metal-insulator transition characteristic with high current density, fast switching speed, and high ON / OFF ratio.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2008.08a
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• pp.337-337
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• 2008

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.22.2-22.2
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• 2009

Currently, metal silicides become increasingly more essential part as a contact material in complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS). Among various silicides, NiSi has several advantages such as low resistivity against narrow line width and low Si consumption. Generally, metal silicides are formed through physical vapor deposition (PVD) of metal film, followed by annealing. Nanoscale devices require formation of contact in the inside of deep contact holes, especially for memory device. However, PVD may suffer from poor conformality in deep contact holes. Therefore, Atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be a promising method since it can produce thin films with excellent conformality and atomic scale thickness controllability through the self-saturated surface reaction. In this study, Ni thin films were deposited by thermal ALD using bis(dimethylamino-2-methyl-2-butoxo)nickel [Ni(dmamb)2] as a precursor and NH3 gas as a reactant. The Ni ALD produced pure metallic Ni films with low resistivity of 25 $\mu{\Omega}cm$. In addition, it showed the excellent conformality in nanoscale contact holes as well as on Si nanowires. Meanwhile, the Ni ALD was applied to area-selective ALD using octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer as a blocking layer. Due to the differences of the nucleation on OTS modified surfaces toward ALD reaction, ALD Ni films were selectively deposited on un-coated OTS region, producing 3 ${\mu}m$-width Ni line patterns without expensive patterning process.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.7-11
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• 2007

In this study, new evaluation method for the stability and corrosion resistance properties of passive films has been suggested by means of observation of self-activation process in open-circuit state and galvanostatic nanoscale reduction test. The experiments were performed for air-formed oxide film in case of plain carbon steel, and for anodically passivated films formed in aqueous sulfuric acid solutions in case of titanium and 304 stainless steel. From these experimental results, we derived two parameters, $i_{0}$ and $q_{0}$, which characterize the self-activation process and the properties of passive film on a stainless steel surface. The parameter $i_{0}$ was defined as the rate of self-activation, and $q_{0}$, the reduced amount of charge during the self-activation process. In conclusion, it is considered that the stability and corrosion resistance of passive metals and alloys can be evaluated quantitatively by three parameters of $\tau_{0}$, $q_{0}$, and $i_{0}$, which easily obtain by means of observing the self-activation process and galvanostatic nanoscale reduction test.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.275-281
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• 2017

In this work, we have fabricated anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) with ordered nanoscale porosity through an anodization process. We deposited gold and nano-organic thin films on the porous AAO surface to protect its structure and reduce friction. We investigated the tribological characteristics of the porous AAO with respect to the protective surface coatings using tribometers. While investigating the frictional characteristics of the samples by applying normal forces of the order of micro-Newton, we observed that AAO without a protective coating exhibits the highest friction coefficient. In the presence of protective surface coatings, the friction coefficient decreases significantly. We applied normal forces of the order of milli-Newton during the tribotests to investigate the wear characteristics of AAO, and observed that AAO without protective surface coatings experiences severe damage due to the brittle nature of the oxide layer. We observed the presence of several pieces of fractured particles in the wear track; these fractured particles lead to an increase in the friction. However, by using surface coatings such as gold thin films and nano-organic thin films, we confirmed that the thin films with nanoscale thickness protect the AAO surface without exhibiting significant wear tracks and maintain a stable friction coefficient for the duration of the tribotests.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.115-121
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• 2012

Exploration in microelectromechanical systems(MEMS) and nanotechnology requires evaluation techniques suitable for sub-micron length scale so that thermal and mechanical properties of novel materials can be investigated for optimal design of miro/nanostructures. The ultrafast optical pump-probe technique provides a contact-free and non-destructive way to characterize nanoscale thin-films, and its ultrahigh temporal resolution enables the study of heat-transport phenomena down to a sub-picosecond regime. This paper reviews the principle of optical pump-probe technique and introduces its application to the area of micro/nano-NDE.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.221-224
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• 1996

We synthesized amphiphilic material including dye skeleton, p-phenylenediamine(PD) by attaching norma-decyl group of two strands at a part of coordinating atom, for obtaining reasonable design of LB uniform films. The synthesis of this compounds was quantitatively carried out under ultra pure state. This product was identified with FT-lR spectroscopy, UV absortion spectroscopy, and $^1$H-NMR spectroscopy, respectively. When manufacturing monolayer, we confirmed molecular area from pressure-area($\pi$-A) cutie of thiscompound onto the surface of the water. The spectroscopic approach also has done by UV absortion spectroscopy. It was shown that PD-complex LBfilms were deposited well with monolayer thickness. The conductivity based on I-V characteristics of PD-complex LB films were in the range of 10$^{-10}$ S/cm at room temperture. The microscopic properties by AFM, showed the good orientation of various monolayer or multilayer molecules

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.64-64
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• 2003

• Proceedings of the Polymer Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.274-274
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• 2006

Recently, conjugated polymer solar cells have attracted a great deal of attention. In this work, we applied the various scanning probe techniques to characterize composite materials typically used to fabricate polymer solar cells: poly-3(hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and P3HT/PCBM/Au nanoparticle (NP) samples. The latter is studied due to the idea of using the gold NP surface plasmon to enhance the optical absorption of the composite films. AFM is used to characterize the film morphology whereas conducting AFM is used to study the charge transport properties at the nanoscale. We found that there is a direct correlation between the nanoscale charge transport measurements and the device efficiencies.