• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.31-37
• /
• 2017

Recently, there has been substantial interest in flexible and wearable devices whose properties and performances are close to conventional devices on hard substrates. Despite the advancement on flexible devices with organic semiconductors or carbon nanotube films, their performances are limited by the carrier scattering at the molecular to molecular or nanotube-to-nanotube junctions. Here in this study, we demonstrate on the vertical semiconductor crystal array embedded in flexible polymer matrix. Such structures can relieve the strain effectively, thereby accommodating large flexural deformation. To achieve such structure, we first established a low-temperature solution-phase synthesis of single crystalline 3D architectures consisting of epitaxially grown ZnO constituent crystals by position and growth direction controlled growth strategy. The ZnO vertical crystal array was integrated into a piece of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate, which was then mechanically detached from the hard substrate to achieve the freestanding ZnO-polymer composite. In addition, the characteristics of transferred ZnO were confirmed by additional structural and photoluminescent measurements. The ZnO vertical crystal array embedded in PDMS was further employed as pressure sensor that exhibited an active response to the external pressure, by piezoelectric effect of ZnO crystal.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.94-98
• /
• 2014

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films with a TiN buffer layer have been fabricated on SUS430 substrate by RF reactive magnetron sputtering at room temperature under 25~75% $N_2$ /Ar. The characterization of film properties were performed using surface profiler, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS), and pressure-voltage measurement system. The deposition rates of AlN films were decreased with increasing the $N_2$ concentration owing to lower mass of nitrogen ions than Ar. The as-deposited AlN films showed crystalline phase, and with increasing the $N_2$ concentration, the peak of AlN(100) plane and the crystallinity became weak. Any change in the preferential orientation of the as-deposited AlN films was not observed within our $N_2$ concentration range. But in the case of 50% $N_2$ /Ar condition, the peak of (002) plane, which is determinant in pressure sensing properties, appeared. XPS depth profiling of AlN/TiN/SUS430 revealed Al/N ratio was close to stoichiometric value (45:47) when deposited under 50% $N_2/Ar$ atmosphere at room temperature. The output signal voltage of AlN sensor showed a linear behavior between 26~85 mV, and the pressure-sensing sensitivity was calculated as 7 mV/MPa.

• ETRI Journal
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.254-261
• /
• 2019

Distinct from conventional energy-harvesting (EH) technologies, such as the use of photovoltaic, piezoelectric, and thermoelectric effects, betavoltaic energy conversion can consistently generate uniform electric power, independent of environmental variations, and provide a constant output of high DC voltage, even under conditions of ultra-low-power EH. It can also dramatically reduce the energy loss incurred in the processes of voltage boosting and regulation. This study realized betavoltaic cells comprised of p-i-n junctions based on silicon carbide, fabricated through a customized semiconductor recipe, and a Ni foil plated with a Ni-63 radioisotope. The betavoltaic energy converter (BEC) includes an array of 16 parallel-connected betavoltaic cells. Experimental results demonstrate that the series and parallel connections of two BECs result in an open-circuit voltage $V_{oc}$ of 3.06 V with a short-circuit current $I_{sc}$ of 48.5 nA, and a $V_{oc}$ of 1.50 V with an $I_{sc}$ of 92.6 nA, respectively. The capacitor charging efficiency in terms of the current generated from the two series-connected BECs was measured to be approximately 90.7%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2012.08a
• /
• pp.115-116
• /
• 2012

The demand for flexible electronic systems such as wearable computers, E-paper, and flexible displays has increased due to their advantages of excellent portability, conformal contact with curved surfaces, light weight, and human friendly interfaces over present rigid electronic systems. This seminar introduces three recent progresses that can extend the application of high performance flexible inorganic electronics. The first part of this seminar will introduce a RRAM with a one transistor-one memristor (1T-1M) arrays on flexible substrates. Flexible memory is an essential part of electronics for data processing, storage, and radio frequency (RF) communication and thus a key element to realize such flexible electronic systems. Although several emerging memory technologies, including resistive switching memory, have been proposed, the cell-to-cell interference issue has to be overcome for flexible and high performance nonvolatile memory applications. The cell-to-cell interference between neighbouring memory cells occurs due to leakage current paths through adjacent low resistance state cells and induces not only unnecessary power consumption but also a misreading problem, a fatal obstacle in memory operation. To fabricate a fully functional flexible memory and prevent these unwanted effects, we integrated high performance flexible single crystal silicon transistors with an amorphous titanium oxide (a-TiO2) based memristor to control the logic state of memory. The $8{\times}8$ NOR type 1T-1M RRAM demonstrated the first random access memory operation on flexible substrates by controlling each memory unit cell independently. The second part of the seminar will discuss the flexible GaN LED on LCP substrates for implantable biosensor. Inorganic III-V light emitting diodes (LEDs) have superior characteristics, such as long-term stability, high efficiency, and strong brightness compared to conventional incandescent lamps and OLED. However, due to the brittle property of bulk inorganic semiconductor materials, III-V LED limits its applications in the field of high performance flexible electronics. This seminar introduces the first flexible and implantable GaN LED on plastic substrates that is transferred from bulk GaN on Si substrates. The superb properties of the flexible GaN thin film in terms of its wide band gap and high efficiency enable the dramatic extension of not only consumer electronic applications but also the biosensing scale. The flexible white LEDs are demonstrated for the feasibility of using a white light source for future flexible BLU devices. Finally a water-resist and a biocompatible PTFE-coated flexible LED biosensor can detect PSA at a detection limit of 1 ng/mL. These results show that the nitride-based flexible LED can be used as the future flexible display technology and a type of implantable LED biosensor for a therapy tool. The final part of this seminar will introduce a highly efficient and printable BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator on plastic substrates. Energy harvesting technologies converting external biomechanical energy sources (such as heart beat, blood flow, muscle stretching and animal movements) into electrical energy is recently a highly demanding issue in the materials science community. Herein, we describe procedure suitable for generating and printing a lead-free microstructured BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator on plastic substrates to overcome limitations appeared in conventional flexible ferroelectric devices. Flexible BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator was fabricated and the piezoelectric properties and mechanically stability of ferroelectric devices were characterized. From the results, we demonstrate the highly efficient and stable performance of BaTiO3 thin film nanogenerator.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.55-59
• /
• 2018

In this paper, we investigated the characteristics of shear stress type piezoresistor on a diaphragm structure formed by MEMS (Microelectromechanical System) technology of silicon-direct-bonding (SDB) wafers with Si/$SiO_2$/Si-sub. The diaphragm structure formed by etching the backside of the wafer using a TMAH aqueous solution can be used for manufacturing various sensors. In this study, the optimum shape condition of the shear stress type piezoresistor formed on the diaphragm is found through ANSYS simulation, and the diaphragm structure is formed by using the semiconductor microfabrication technique and the shear stress formed by boron implantation. The characteristics of the piezoelectric resistance are compared with the simulation results. The sensing diaphragm was made in the shape of an exact square. It has been experimentally found that the maximum shear stress for the same pressure at the center of the edge of the diaphragm is generated when the structure is in the exact square shape. Thus, the sensing part of the sensor has been designed to be placed at the center of the edge of the diaphragm. The prepared shear stress type piezoresistor was in good agreement with the simulation results, and the sensitivity of the piezoresistor formed on the $2200{\mu}m{\times}2200{\mu}m$ diaphragm was $183.7{\mu}V/kPa$ and the linearity of 1.3 %FS at the pressure range of 0~100 kPa and the symmetry of sensitivity was also excellent.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.33 no.1
• /
• pp.54-62
• /
• 2013

In this study, a wireless and non-power SAW (surface acoustic wave) temperature sensor was developed. The single inter-digital transducer (IDT) of SAW temperature sensor of which resonance frequency is 434 MHz was fabricated on $128^{\circ}$ rot-X $LiNbO_3$ piezoelectric substrate by semiconductor processing technology. To find optimal acoustic reflector for SAW temperature sensor, various kinds of acoustic reflectors were fabricated and their reflection characteristics were analyzed. The IDT type acoustic reflector showed better reflection characteristic than other reflectors. The wireless temperature sensing system consisting of SAW temperature sensor with dipole antenna and a microprocessor based control circuit with dipole antenna for transmitting signal to activate the SAW temperature sensor and receiving the signal from SAW temperature sensor was developed. The result with wireless SAW temperature sensing system showed that the frequency of SAW temperature sensor was linearly decreased with the increase of temperature in the range of 40 to $80^{\circ}C$ and the developed wireless SAW temperature sensing system showed the excellent performance with the coefficient of determination of 0.99.