• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.479-485
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• 2002

We have investigated the effects of various wafers cleaning on glass/Si bonding using 4 inch Pyrex glass wafers and 4 inch silicon wafers. The various wafer cleaning methods were examined; SPM(sulfuric-peroxide mixture, $H_2SO_4:H_2O_2$ = 4 : 1, $120^{\circ}C$), RCA(company name, $NH_4OH:H_2O_2:H_2O$ = 1 : 1 : 5, $80^{\circ}C$), and combinations of those. The best room temperature bonding result was achieved when wafers were cleaned by SPM followed by RCA cleaning. The minimum increase in surface roughness measured by AFM(atomic force microscope) confirmed such results. During successive heat treatments, the bonding strength was improved with increased annealing temperatures up to $400^{\circ}C$, but debonding was observed at $450^{\circ}C$. The difference in thermal expansion coefficients between glass and Si wafer led debonding. When annealed at fixed temperatures(300 and $400^{\circ}C$), bonding strength was enhanced until 28 hours, but then decreased for further anneal. To find the cause of decrease in bonding strength in excessively long annealing time, the ion distribution at Si surface was investigated using SIMS(secondary ion mass spectrometry). tons such as sodium, which had been existed only in glass before annealing, were found at Si surface for long annealed samples. Decrease in bonding strength can be caused by the diffused sodium ions to pass the glass/si interface. Therefore, maximum bonding strength can be achieved when the cleaning procedure and the ion concentrations at interface are optimized in glass/Si wafer direct bonding.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.682-688
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• 2014

Physical and chemical changes in a polished wafer and in $2.5{\mu}m$ & $4{\mu}m$ epitaxially grown Si layer wafers (Epilayer wafer) after surface treatment were investigated. We characterized the influence of surface treatment on wafer properties such as surface roughness and the chemical composition and bonds. After each surface treatment, the physical change of the wafer surface was evaluated by atomic force microscopy to confirm the surface morphology and roughness. In addition, chemical changes in the wafer surface were studied by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy measurement. Changes in the chemical composition were confirmed before and after the surface treatment. By combined analysis of the physical and chemical changes, we found that diluted hydrofluoric acid treatment is more effective than buffered oxide etching for $SiO_2$ removal in both polished and Epi-Layer wafers; however, the etch rate and the surface roughness in the given treatment are different among the polished $2.5{\mu}m$ and $4{\mu}m$ Epi-layer wafers in spite of the identical bulk structural properties of these wafers. This study therefore suggests that independent surface treatment optimization is required for each wafer type, $2.5{\mu}m$ and $4{\mu}m$, due to the meaningful differences in the initial surface chemical and physical properties.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.884-892
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• 2001

Biodegradable wafers were prepared with poly (L-lactide-co-glycolide) (50 : 50 mole ratio of lactide to glycolide, molecular weight:5000 g/mole) by direct compression method for the sustained release of nifedipine to investigate the possibility of the treatment of hypertension. PLGA wafers were prepared by altering initial drug/polymer loading ratio, wafer thickness, and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) content. These wafers showed new zero-order release patterns for 11 days, and various biphasic release patterns could be obtained by altering the composition of wafers such as addition of matrix binder as HPMC to the PLGA wafer to reduce release rate of initial phase. The onset of polymer mass loss only occured after 4 days and about 40% of mass loss was observed after 11 days nifedipine release. This system had advantages in terms of simplicity in design and obviousness of drug release rate and may be useful as an implantable dosage form.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.649-653
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• 2010

In this paper, double texturization of multi crystalline silicon solar cells was studied with laser and reactive ion etching (RIE). In the case of multi crystalline silicon wafers, chemical etching has problems in producing a uniform surface texture. Thus various etching methods such as laser and dry texturization have been studied for multi crystalline silicon wafers. In this study, laser texturization with an Nd:$YVO_4$ green laser was performed first to get the proper hole spacing and $300{\mu}m$ was found to be the most proper value. Laser texturization on crystalline silicon wafers was followed by damage removal in acid solution and RIE to achieve double texturization. This study showed that double texturization on multi crystalline silicon wafers with laser firing and RIE resulted in lower reflectance, higher quantum yield and better efficiency than that process without RIE. However, RIE formed sharp structures on the silicon wafer surfaces, which resulted in 0.8% decrease of fill factor at solar cell characterization. While chemical etching makes it difficult to obtain a uniform surface texture for multi crystalline silicon solar cells, the process of double texturization with laser and RIE yields a uniform surface structure, diminished reflectance, and improved efficiency. This finding lays the foundation for the study of low-cost, high efficiency multi crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.505-512
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• 2012

In this study, an inspection system based on an optical scanning mechanism is developed for the inspection of silicon wafers in solar cells. In particular, a structured hybrid illumination system that can satisfy the illumination requirement for the detection of various defects is designed. In the hybrid illumination system, the optimum illumination conditions are selected by considering the design of experiment in master glass and silicon wafer. The illumination conditions available are B-high, BG-high, BR-high, and BGR-high for master glass and R-middle-B-medium for silicon wafers. By using the illumination conditions for silicon wafers, numerous surface defects like pinhole, scratch, and chipping, can be accurately detected. The hybrid illumination system is expected to be widely used for the inspection of silicon wafers in solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2017

In this study, a terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) imaging technique was used to measure doping concentration and physical properties (such as refractive index and permittivity) of the doped silicon (Si) wafers. The transmission and reflection modes with an incidence angle of $30^{\circ}$ were employed to determine the physical properties of the doped Si wafers. The doping concentrations of the prepared Si wafers were varied from $10^{14}$ to $10^{18}$ in both N-type and P-type cases. Finally, the correlation between the doping concentration and the power of the THz wave was determined by measuring the powers of the transmitted and reflected THz waves of the doped Si wafers. Additionally, the doped thickness, the refractive index, and permittivity of each doped Si wafer were calculated using the THz time domain waveform. The results indicate that the THz-TDS imaging technique is potentially a promising technique to measure the doping concentration as well as other optical properties (such as the refractive index and permittivity) of the doped Si wafer.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.687-694
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• 2015

A photoluminescence (PL) imaging method using a vision camera was employed to inspect InGaN/GaN quantum-well light-emitting diode (LED) epi-wafers. The PL image revealed dark spot defective regions (DSDRs) as well as a spatial map of integrated PL intensity of the epi-wafer. The Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) nonradiative recombination coefficient increased with the size of the DSDRs. The high nonradiative recombination rates of the DSDRs resulted in degradation of the optical properties of the LED chips fabricated at the defective regions. Abnormal current-voltage characteristics with large forward leakages were also observed for LED chips with DSDRs, which could be due to parallel resistances bypassing the junction and/or tunneling through defects in the active region. It was found that the SRH nonradiative recombination process was dominant in the voltage range where the forward leakage by tunneling was observed. The results indicated that the DSDRs observed by PL imaging of LED epi-wafers were high density SRH nonradiative recombination centers which could affect the optical and electrical properties of the LED chips, and PL imaging can be an inspection method for evaluation of the epi-wafers and estimation of properties of the LED chips before fabrication.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.211-215
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• 2017

Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) and wet etching are employed in existing texturing processes to fabricate solar cells. Laser etching is used for particular purposes such as selective etching for grooves. However, such processes require a higher level of cost and longer processing time and those factors affect the unit cost of each process of fabricating solar cells. As a way to reduce the unit cost of this process of making solar cells, an atmospheric plasma source will be employed in this study for the texturing of crystalline silicon wafers. In this study, we produced the atmospheric plasma source and examined its basic properties. Then, using the prepared atmospheric plasma source, we performed the texturing process of crystalline silicon wafers. The results obtained from texturing processes employing the atmospheric plasma source and employing RIE were examined and compared with each other. The average reflectance of the specimens obtained from the atmospheric plasma texturing process was 7.88 %, while that of specimens obtained from the texturing process employing RIE was 8.04 %. Surface morphologies of textured wafers were examined and measured through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and similar shapes of reactive ion etched wafers were found. The Power Conversion Efficiencies (PCE) of the solar cells manufactured through each process were 16.97 % (atmospheric plasma texturing) and 16.29 % (RIE texturing).

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.335-343
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• 2004

Carmustine (l,3-bis(2-chloroethyI)-1-nitrosourea, BICNU) used as antineoplastic drug for the treatment of brain tumor is not appropriate for the long term delivery, because it has short biological half life. Therefore, poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) is useful as drug carrier for the long term delivery due to bulk erosion property. Glycolide monomer is applied to release of BICNU owing to non-toxic and monomeric components after biodegradation of PLGA. In this study, BICNU-loaded PLGA wafers with or without glycolide monomer were fabricated by conventional direct compression method for the sustained release of BICNU. These wafers were observed for their release profiles of BICNU and degradation rates by SEM, NMR, and GPC. Furthermore, we make multi-layer wafers and compare them with release profiles of conventional wafer. From these results, drug release of BICNU-loaded PLGA wafers was increased with increasing the glycolid monomer contents. We confirmed that glycolide monomer and BICNU contents in barrier-layer influenced the drug release profiles and degradation rate.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.680-690
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• 2002

Implantable biodegradable wafers were prepared with pamidronate -loaded poly (L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA, 75 : 25 mole ratio by lactide to glycolide, molecular weight : 20000 and 90000 g/mole) by direct compression method for the sustained release of pamidronate to investigate the possibility for the treatment of bone resorption. Pamidronate-loaded PLGA powders were prepared by means of physical mixing and spray drying with the control of formulation factors and characterized by scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffractometer. The pamidronate-loaded PLGA powders fabricated into wafers by direct compression under the constant pressure and time at room temperature. These wafers were also observed for their structural characteristic, release pattern, and degradation pattern. The release rate of pamidronate increased with increasing their initial loading ratio as well as increasing wafer thickness. The molecular weight of PLGA affects the release pattern : the higher molecular weight of PLGA, the faster release rate. It can be explained that the higher viscosity of high molecular PLGA solution at same concentration tends to aggregate PLGA and pamidronate resulting in unstable pharmaceutical dosage form. This system had advantages in terms of simplicity in design and obviousness of drug release rate and nay be useful as an implantable dosage form for the treatment of aural cholesteatoma.