One-Step Etching Characteristics of ITO/Ag/ITO Multilayered Electrode in High-Density and High-Electron-Temperature Plasma.

This paper presents the dry etching characteristics of indium tin oxide (ITO)/Ag/ITO multilayered thin film, used as a pixel electrode in a high-resolution active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) device. Dry etching was performed using a combination of H2 and HCl gases in a reactive ion etching system with a remote electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma source, in order to achieve high electron temperature. The effect of the gas ratio (H2/HCl) was closely observed, in order to achieve an optimal etch profile and an effective etch process, while other parameters-such as the radio frequency (RF) power, ECR power, chamber pressure, and temperature-were fixed. The optimized process, with an appropriate gas ratio, constitutes a one-step serial dry etch solution for ITO and Ag multilayered thin films.

Characteristics of room temperature silicon nitride deposited by internal inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition.

The parallel inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition system is used to directly control the activated radical and charged species in the plasma of a silicon nitride thin film, which is deposited at room temperature for flexible displays. By controlling the plasma characteristics of silicon nitride with plasma heating at 85 °C, this new technique produced low hydrogen content silicon nitride thin films at room temperature (25 °C). Deposition rates and refractive indices of the films ranged from 6.8 nm/min to 4.57 nm/min and from 2.125 to 1.749 with NH3 variation and ranged from 5.12 nm/min to 4.105 nm/min and from 1.81 to 1.92 with N2 variation, respectively. In the optical emission spectra of the plasmas investigated at fixed RF powers (1000 W), the peaks corresponding to the radical and charged species of SiH4, N2, and NH3 were related to the changes of the deposition rate and refractive index of the films. Current-voltage measurements with MIM capacitors revealed that these films had dielectric breakdown fields higher than 8 MV/cm, and FTIR showed their lower hydrogen contents than the conventional PECVD films.

Electrical and mechanical characteristics of room temperature deposited silicon nitride using two inner parallel cylindrical coils inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition.

For investigating silicon nitride (SiN) thin film deposition process at room temperature without additional substrate heating, we studied inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition with two inner parallel cylindrical coils which can activate the more radicals and charged species in the plasma. We investigated the influence of plasma RF power on the characteristics of room temperature deposited SiN films. Deposition rates, dielectric constant, refractive index, and stress of the films ranged from 4.5 nm/min to 8.3 nm/min, 8.4 to 10, 1.8 to 2.1, and 0.54 to 0.15, respectively. According to the FTIR measurements, the concentration of the Si--H and N--H bonds was decreased as the RF power increased, and the Si--H bonds tended to disappear at RF power over 500 W. This reduction in the hydrogen content was accompanied by the increases in the deposition rate and refractive index. It was confirmed that the breakdown field could be also maximized to 10 MV/cm.