We investigated the tribological properties of amorphous carbon (a-C) films deposited with CrC interlayers of various thicknesses as the adhesive layer. A-C and CrC thin films were deposited using the unbalanced magnetron (UBM) sputtering method with graphite and chromium as the targets. CrC films as the interlayer were fabricated under a-C films, and various structural, surface, and tribological properties of a-C films deposited with various CrC interlayer thicknesses were investigated. With various CrC interlayer thicknesses under a-C films, the tribological properties of CrC/a-C films were improved; the increased film thickness exhibited a maximum high hardness of over 27.5 GPa, high elastic modulus of over 242 GPa, critical load of 31 N, residual stress of 1.85 GPa, and a smooth surface below 0.09 nm at the condition of 30-nm CrC thickness.

We propose a method for improving the reliability of a solar cell by applying a fluorinated surface coating to protect the cell from the outdoor environment using an atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) treatment. An APP source is operated by radio frequency (RF) power, Ar gas, and O₂gas. APP treatment can remove organic contaminants from the surface and improve other surface properties such as the surface free energy. We determined the optimal APP parameters to maximize the surface free energy by using the dyne pen test. Then we used the scratch test in order to confirm the correlation between the APP parameters and the surface properties by measuring the surface free energy and adhesive characteristics of the coating. Consequently, an increase in the surface free energy of the cover glass caused an improvement in the adhesion between the coating layer and the cover glass. After treatment, adhesion between the coating and cover glass was improved by 35%.

Current progress in the development of semiconductor technology in applications involving high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) and power devices is hindered by the lack of adequate ways todissipate heat generated during device operation. Concurrently, electronic devices that use gallium nitride (GaN) substrates do not perform well, because of the poor heat dissipation of the substrate. Suggested alternatives for overcoming these limitations include integration of high thermal conductivity material like diamond near the active device areas. This study will address a critical development in the art of GaN on diamond (GOD) structure by designing for ideal heat dissipation, in order to create apathway with the least thermal resistance and to improve the overall ease of integrating diamond heat spreaders into future electronic devices. This research has been carried out by means of heat transfer simulation, which has been successfully demonstrated by a finite-element method.

The Ti adhesion layers were deposited onto the glass substrate for transparent capacitors using Bi2Mg2/3Nb4/3O7 (BMNO) dielectric thin films. Graphene was transferred onto the Ti/glass substrate after growing onto the Ni/SiO2/Si using rapid-thermal pulse CVD (RTPCVD). The BMNO dielectric thin films were investigated for the microstructure, dielectric and leakage properties in the case of capacitors with and without Ti adhesion layers. Leakage current and dielectric properties were strongly dependent on the Ti adhesion layers grown for graphene bottom electrode.