Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCCs) are essential passive components in the electronics industry, known for their high capacitance due to the multilayer structure comprising inner electrodes and dielectric layers. Nickel electrodes are commonly used in MLCCs as the inner electrodes, and to prevent oxidation during the co-firing of the dielectric layers with nickel electrodes, reducing atmosphere is required. However, reducing atmosphere sintering can also induce a reduction of the dielectric, necessitating precise control of oxygen partial pressure. To explore the possibility of using oxide electrodes that do not require reducing atmosphere sintering, we analyze the electrical properties of nickel oxide (NiO) as a potential candidate. As a preliminary study on its use as an alternative inner electrode, the correlation between microstructure and electrical properties of bulk NiO under different sintering conditions was investigated to gain insights into the conduction mechanisms of the material.

Gallium Oxide (Ga₂O₃) is preferred as a material for next generation power semiconductors. The Ga₂O₃ should solve the disadvantages of low thermal resistance characteristics and difficulty in forming an inversion layer through p-type ion implantation. However, Ga₂O₃ is difficult to inject p-type ions, so it is being studied in a heterojunction structure using p-type oxides, such as NiO, SnO, and Cu₂O. Research the lateral-type FET structure of NiO/Ga₂O₃ heterojunction under the Gate contact using the Sentaurus TCAD simulation. At this time, the VG-ID and VD-ID curves were identified by the thickness of the Epi-region (channel) and the doping concentration of NiO of 1 × 10¹⁷ to 1 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3. The increase in Epi region thickness has a lower threshold voltage from -4.4 V to -9.3 V at I_D = 1 × 10^-8 mA/mm, as current does not flow only when the depletion of the PN junction extends to the Epi/Sub interface. As an increase of NiO doping concentration, increases the depletion area in Ga₂O₃ region and a high electric field distribution on PN junction, and thus the breakdown voltage increases from 512 V to 636 V at I_D =1 × 10^-3 A/mm.

Nickel oxide is a nonstoichiometric transparent conductive oxide with p-type conductivity, a wide-band energy gap of 3.4~4.0 eV, and excellent chemical stability, making it a very important candidate as a material for bipolar devices.P-type conductivity in Transparent Conductive Oxides (TCO) is controlled by the oxygen vacancy concentration. During the TCO film deposition process, additional oxygen diffusing into the NiO structure causes the formation of Ni 3p ions and Ni vacancies. This eventually affects the hole concentration of the p-type oxide thin film. In this work, the surface morphology and the electrical characteristics were confirmed in accordance with the annealing atmosphere of the nickel oxide thin film.

We demonstrate an alignment technology using an imprinting process on an inorganic NiOx film. The aligned nanopattern was fabricated on a silicon wafer by laser interference lithography. The aligned nano pattern was then imprinted onto the sol-gel driven NiOx film using an imprinting process at an annealing temperature of 150℃. After the imprinting process, parallel grooves had been formed on the NiOx film. Atomic force microscopy and water contact angle measurements were performed to confirm the parallel groove on the NiOx film. The grooves caused liquid crystal alignment through geometric restriction, similar to grooves formed by the rubbing process on polyimide. The liquid crystal cell exhibited a pretilt angle of 0.2°, which demonstrated homogeneous alignment.