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ITO/Au/ITO multilayer thin films were deposited onto polycarbonate substrate via magnetron sputtering technique without intentional heating. The deposition times of both ITO and Au layers were studied to optimize the overall transparency and conductivity. As-prepared thin films were characterized using X-ray diffraction analysis, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and physical property measurement system. The optical measurement results revealed that the transmittance of the films were enhanced by increasing the gold deposition time up to 15 s. Beyond this point, further increasing the duration caused a decrease in optical transmittance. Upon optimization of the Au deposition time, the deposition duration of ITO layers was also studied to increase electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness (SE). Maximum EMI SE in this work was measured as 26.8 dB, yielding 99.8% power attenuation, which was verified by simulation results.

International Conference on Photovoltaic Technologies (PVCon) -- JUL 04-06, 2018 -- Middle E Tech Univ, Culture & Convent Ctr, Ankara, Turkey, WOS: 000499762300011, In the present study, using a large area roll-to-roll DC magnetron sputtering system deposition of ITO thin films on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates were achieved. In order to investigate the effect of growth conditions on the film properties all through the deposition process, optical emission spectroscopy (OES) analysis have been accomplished in a governable way. The consequences of Oxygen partial pressure and film thickness on electrical, and optical properties of the films were determined. It was shown that the intensity of optical emission peaks are subjected to the discharge power and as well as the O-2/Ar flow ratio. Large area, uniform ITO films with relatively high transparency and low electrical resistivity (R(2)(

Copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) absorber layer attracts so much attention in photovoltaic industry since it contains earth abundant, low cost and non-toxic elements contrary to other chalcogenide based solar cells. In the present work, CZTS absorber layers were prepared following a two-stage process: firstly, a stack of metal precursors (Copper (Cu)/Tin (Sn)/Zinc (Zn)/Copper (Cu)) were deposited on molybdenum (Mo) substrate by magnetron sputtering, then this stack was annealed under S atmosphere inside a tubular furnace. CZTS thin films were investigated using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The effect of sulfurization time and the thickness of top and bottom Cu layer in precursors on the properties of CZTS thin films were investigated. The importance of Cu thickness adjacent to Sn to avoid detrimental phases was addressed. The significance of sulfurization time to restrict the Sn and Zn losses, formation of oxides such as tin dioxide and zinc oxide, and formation of molybdenum disulfide and voids between Mo/CZTS interface was also addressed. Moreover, cadmium sulfide buffer layer, which is conventionally used in CZTS solar cells, is replaced by an environmentally friendly alternative zinc oxysulfide buffer layer.

In this study Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 (CZTSe) thin films were grown by a two-stage process that involved sputter deposition of a Cu/Sn/Zn/Cu metallic stack, annealing the stack at various temperatures for 30 min, evaporation of a Se cap over the metallic stack thus forming a precursor layer, and subjecting the precursor layer to a final high temperature reaction step at 550 °C. Different samples were prepared with annealing temperatures of the metallic stacks ranging from 200 °C to 350 °C. The results showed that heat treatment of the metallic stacks did not cause much change in their morphology and elemental composition, however their phase content changed noticeably when the anneal temperature was raised to 250 °C. Specifically, while the metallic films were dominated by CuSn and Cu 5 Zn 8 phases at low temperatures, the dominant phase shifted to Cu 6 Sn 5 at the annealing temperature of 250 °C and higher. Also formation of a distinct Cu 3 Zn 2 phase was observed upon annealing at temperatures at or above 250 °C. After reaction with Se, the CZTSe layer obtained from the metallic film, which was annealed at 250 °C was found to be the best n terms of its composition, crystalline quality and purity, although it contained a small amount of CuSe. The other layers were found to contain small amounts of other secondary phases such as SnSe, CuSe 2 , ZnSe and Cu 2 SnSe 3 . SEM micrographs showed denser structure for CZTSe layers grown from metallic films annealed at or above 250 °C. Optical band gap, resistivity and carrier concentration of the best quality CZTSe film were found to be about 0.87 eV, 2 Ω-cm and 4 × 10 17 cm − 3 , respectively.

In this study, we propose a new type of nanolithography procedure to fabricate orderly patterned metallic nanostructures using the electrohydrodynamic method and the reactive ion etching process. The electrohydrodynamic process parameters were tuned so as to create patterning with precision, and fibers in nanoscale on silver-coated substrates. We also studied reactive ion etching with different durations on the well-patterned samples. The experiments show that applying a voltage of 400 V resulted in straight patterned fibers with a diameter of 208.7 ± 30.3 nm. The statistical analysis on scanning electron microscope (SEM) images showed a significant difference in the diameter of the fibers fabricated at 400 V compared to those at 500 V and 600 V. We also confirm that the etching process has no affect on the fiber diameter. Moreover, electron dispersive X-Ray spectrometer (EDX) results suggest that an etching duration of 7 min is sufficient to remove the silver coating that is not covered with the fibers, and protect the silver nanostructures underneath the fibers. Utilizing a low-cost nanolithography procedure, we obtain the orderly patterned silver nanostructures for possible integration into miniaturized devices.

A detailed surface free energy (SFE) knowledge of transparent conducting oxide (TCO)/metal/TCO electrodes is necessary for their applications related to surface wettability. However, SFE analysis of these surfaces has not been performed systematically previously. In this study, ITO and ITO/Au/ITO multilayer thin films were coated onto O2 plasma treated polycarbonate (PC) substrates by magnetron sputtering. The wettability characteristics of untreated PC, O2 plasma treated PC, ITO, Au interlayer, and ITO/Au/ITO multilayer thin films were evaluated by apparent contact angle measurements of nine different test liquids having various surface tensions. Following this, Lifshitz-van der Waals, acidic, basic, dispersive, and polar components of SFE were calculated using acid-base, geometric and harmonic mean approaches. In the present study, in which the significance of calculation methods and selected liquid pairs on SFE parameters were investigated, the effect of Au interlayer presence on SFE parameters were also evaluated simultaneously. The results showed that the total SFE values of ITO/Au/ITO multilayer thin films were found to be higher than that of ITO surface. The reasons behind this difference were discussed in terms of SFE components obtained using various liquid pairs by different methods. The results were also supported with XRD, XPS, AFM, and TEM analysis.

The aim of this study is to calculate the optimum lifetime of Molybdenum (Mo) thermal evaporation boats for Copper (Cu) filling in thin film technologies. Three types of Mo boats with thicknesses of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.5 mm were used during the experiments under the high vacuum condition about 6.0 × 10−6 Torr. The behavior of each boat was investigated by focusing on the total amount of evaporation material, operational time and applied power. Prior to the deposition process, material was loaded on the evaporation boat by two methods. In the first method, Cu wire was cut into 1 cm long, then every boat was filled with this amount of Cu material. The second alternative feeding method is to use a wire-feeder step motor, which refills boat with Cu wire during evaporation process. The latter one is very useful for continuous deposition process since there is no need to break the vacuum state. In both methods, however, the number of failures during operations increases after a series of experiments have been taken place because of boat aging. The results of failures have been analyzed by various methods, and it has been observed that thinner boats showed better stability for long time operation by continuous feeding technique.

High-κ hafnium-oxide thin films have been fabricated by radio frequency (rf) reactive magnetron sputtering technique. To avoid formation of an undesired interfacial suboxide layer between Si and high-κ film, prior to HfO2 deposition, a thin Hf buffer layer was deposited on p-type (1 0 0) Si substrate at room temperature. Effect of oxygen gas quantity in the O2/Ar gas mixture was studied for the optical and structural properties of grown HfO2 high-κ thin films. The grown thin oxide films were characterized optically using spectroscopic ellipsometer (SE) in detail. Crystal structure was studied by grazing incidence X-ray diffractometer (GIXRD) technique, while bonding structure was obtained by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses. In agreement with GIXRD and FTIR analyses, SE results show that any increment above ideal quantity of oxygen content in the gas mixture resulted in decrements in the refractive index and thickness of HfO2 dielectric film, while increments in SiO2 thickness. It is apparent from experimental results that oxygen to argon gas ratio needs to be smaller than 0.2 for a good film quality. The superior structural and optical properties for grown oxide film were obtained for O2/Ar gas ratio of about 0.05-0.1 combined with ∼30 W constant rf sputtering power. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., TUBITAK project number of 107T117; Izmir Institute of Technologywith BAP project number of 2008IYTE37

A 3D model is set up to simulate the exposure process of inclined/rotated UV lithography for negative SU-8 resists. The formation of inclined resist pillars and microstructures with truncated cone shapes is simulated based on a 3D exposure model in combination with a post exposure bake model for chemically amplified resists and the Mack development model. As one of the interesting applications employing this promising lithography technique for MEMS fabrication, a solid microneedle for drug delivery is simulated., Bayerische Forschungsstiftung

In this work, the effects of gamma radiation on the Raman spectra of Ge nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 have been investigated. SiO2 films containing nanoparticles of Ge were grown using the r.f.-magnetron sputtering technique. Formation of Ge nanocrystals was observed after high temperature annealing in an inert atmosphere and confirmed by Raman measurements. The intensity of the Raman signal originating from Ge nanocrystals was found to decrease with increasing gamma radiation. The study also includes the gamma radiation effects on MOS structure with Ge nanocrystals embedded in SiO2. The gamma radiation effects from 500 up to 4000 Gray were investigated. Capacitance-voltage measurements were performed and analyzed. Oxide traps and interface trap charges were calculated. Results show that MOS structure with Ge nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 is a good candidate to be used in radiation sensors, especially at high radiation doses. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., Abant Izzet Baysal University, BAP.2008.03.02.289

Use of germanium as a storage medium combined with a high-k dielectric tunneling oxide is of interest for non-volatile memory applications. The device structure consists of a thin HfO2 tunneling oxide with a Ge layer either in the form of continuous layer or discrete nanocrystals and relatively thicker SiO2 layer functioning as a control oxide. In this work, we studied interface properties and formation kinetics in SiO2/Ge/HfO2(Ge) multilayer structure during deposition and annealing. This material structure was fabricated by magnetron sputtering and studied by depth profiling with XPS and by Raman spectroscopy. It was observed that Ge atoms penetrate into HfO2 layer during the deposition and segregate out with annealing. This is related to the low solubility of Ge in HfO2 which is observed in other oxides as well. Therefore, Ge out diffusion might be an advantage in forming well controlled floating gate on top of HfO2. In addition we observed the Ge oxidation at the interfaces, where HfSiOx formation is also detected. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., TÜBİTAK; Chalmers University of Technology

X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) of thin SiO2 layers grown by pulsed Nd:YAG laser at a substrate temperature of 748 K are presented. The peak decomposition technique combined with depth profiling is employed to identify the composition and chemical states of the film structure. It is established that the oxide is non-stoichiometric, and contains all oxidation states of Si in different amounts throughout the film. The interface Si/laser-grown oxide is not abrupt, and the coexistence of Si2O3 and Si2O suboxides in a relatively wide interfacial region is found. It is concluded that post-oxidation annealing is necessary in order to improve the microstructure of both oxide and near interface region., TÜBİTAK TBAG/U68 and Bulgarian National Science Foundation under the contract F1508

Light emission from Si-implanted SiO2 layer is a well-known phenomenon. We demonstrated that samples which were implanted with 28Si at a dose of 1.5×1017 cm−2 at 100 keV and annealed at 1050 °C for 2 h exhibit two broad photoluminescence (PL) peaks at ∼650 and 850 nm. The origin of these peaks was investigated by a controlled etch experiment in order to figure out the dependence of the PL spectrum on the location of the implanted Si atoms. It was found that the emission peak of 850 nm is correlated with the Si atom distribution in the matrix and hence with the distribution of Si nanocrystals formed upon annealing, while the emission centers for the 650 nm peak are located in the near surface region. In a parallel experiment, the dependence of the PL spectrum on the excitation wavelength was studied. PL spectrum shifted to higher energies with increasing photon energy due to the selective excitation of the light-emitting centers.

The reflectance spectra and refractive index of Nd:YAG laser-oxidized SiO2 layers with thicknesses from 15 to 75 nm have been investigated with respect to the laser beam energy density and substrate temperature. Thickness and refractive index of films have been determined from reflectance measurements at normal light incidence in the spectral range 300–800 nm. It was found that the oxide-growth conditions at higher substrate temperatures and laser powers greater than 3.36 J cm−2 provides a better film quality in terms of both optical thickness and refractive index. However, the refractive indices of the films are smaller in the whole spectral range studied as compared to that of conventional thermally grown SiO2. This might be due to the porous structure formed during the laser-assisted oxidation. The results suggest the need of post-oxidation annealing to improve the refractive indices of the films, suitable for Si-device applications.