The direct utilization of steelmaking by-product gases in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offers a promising pathway to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in the steel industry. In this study, a Sr-deficient and Ni-doped double perovskite oxide, Sr_1.95Fe_1.35Ni_0.15Mo_0.5O_6-δ (SFNM), was investigated as an anode material for direct Linz-Donawitz converter gas (LDG)-fueled SOFCs. A single-phase double perovskite structure was successfully obtained after calcination at 1,200°C for 12 h, while exsolved metallic Ni nanoparticles were generated on the SFNM surface after reduction at 800°C. Electrochemical performance was evaluated using H₂, simulated-LDG, and CO/CO₂ (85:15) fuels at 800°C. The maximum power densities achieved were 1.23, 0.70, and 0.40 W cm^-2 for H₂, simulated-LDG, and CO/CO₂ fuels, respectively. Although CO-containing fuels exhibited lower opencircuit voltages and power outputs than H₂, the SFNM anode maintained stable operation and appreciable performance under direct simulated-LDG utilization. Impedance analysis revealed that the increased polarization resistance in simulated-LDG and CO/CO₂ atmospheres was mainly associated with fuel adsorption/desorption and gas diffusion, while interfacial charge-transfer resistance remained relatively small. The superior performance obtained with simulated-LDG compared to the CO/CO₂ mixture was attributed to the presence of a small amount of H₂, which facilitated anode reaction kinetics. These results demonstrate that SFNM is a promising mixed ionic-electronic conductor anode for the direct electrochemical conversion of CO-rich steelmaking by-product gases into electricity.

4H-Silicon carbide (4H-SiC) is a promising material for power and harsh environment devices owing to its superior material properties, including wide bandgap, high critical electric field, and high thermal conductivity. However, despite the advantages of 4H-SiC, its channel mobility is reduced due to the high interface defect density between SiC and the oxide film, leading to increased device switching loss. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new fabrication methods to improve the quality of the SiO₂/4H-SiC interface. According to recent research, the effect of high-temperature (1,250~1,300℃) nitric oxide (NO) annealing on the interface states of SiO₂/4H-SiC and the channel mobility of 4H-SiC metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) were investigated. Previous studies have optimized the NO post-oxidation annealing (POA) process, using N₂ diluted NO at 1,300℃ to reduce the high SiO₂/4H-SiC interface trap density (D_it). This paper focuses on high-temperature (1,250℃) 10% NO annealing to reduce interface defects by integrating nitrogen atoms into the oxide layer near the SiC interface, potentially increasing the channel mobility. Electrical properties such as D_it, threshold voltage (V_th), field-effect mobility (μ_FE), and specific on-resistance (R_on,sp) were assessed through capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements. It has been confirmed that the interface defect density of the gate oxide film was effectively improved under the POA conditions of 10% NO for 1 hour at 1,250℃.

4H-SiC power metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) have been developed to achieve lower specific-on-resistance (R_on,sp), and the gate oxides have been thermally grown. The poor channel mobility resulting from the high interface trap density (D_it) at the SiO₂/4H-SiC interface significantly affects the higher switching loss of the power device. Therefore, the development of novel fabrication processes to enhance the quality of the SiO₂/4H-SiC interface is required. In this paper, NO post-oxidation annealing (POA) by using the conditions of N₂ diluted NO at a high temperature (1,300℃) is proposed to reduce the high interface trap density resulting from thermal oxidation. The NO POA is carried out in various NO ambient (0, 10, 50, and 100% NO mixed with 100, 90, 50, and 0% of high purity N₂ gas to achieve the optimized condition while maintaining a high temperature (1,300℃). To confirm the optimized condition of the NO POA, measuring capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V), and time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) are employed. It is confirmed that the POA condition of 50% NO at 1,300℃ facilitates the equilibrium state of both the oxidation and nitridation at the SiO₂/4H-SiC interface, thereby reducing the Dit.

In this work, we fabricated oxide on an n-type silicon substrate through local anodic oxidation (LAO) using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The resulting oxide thickness was measured and its correlation with load force, scan speed and applied voltage was analyzed. The surface oxide layer was stripped using a buffered oxide etch. Ohmic contacts were created by applying silver paste on the silicon substrate back face. LAO was performed at approximately 70% humidity. The oxide thickness increased with increasing the load force, the voltage, and reducing the scan speed. We confirmed that LAO/AFM can be used to create both lateral and, to some extent, vertical shapes and patterns, as previously shown in the literature.

In order to achieve a high efficiency for the silicon solar cell, a passivation characteristic that minimizes the electrical loss at a silicon interface is required. In this paper, we evaluated the applicability of the oxide film formed by ozone for the tunnel silicon oxide film. To this end, we fabricated the silicon oxide film by changing the condition of ozone oxidation and compared the characteristics with the oxide film formed by the existing nitric acid solution. The ozone oxidation was formed in the temperature range of 300~500℃ at an ozone concentration of 17.5 wt%, and the passivation characteristics were compared. Compared to the silicon oxide film formed by nitric acid oxidation, implied open circuit voltage (iVoc) was improved by ~20 mV in the ozone oxidation and the ozone oxidation after the nitric acid pretreatment was improved by ~30 mV.

In this paper, we discuss β-Ga₂O₃ thin films that have been grown on freestanding GaN (FS-GaN) using furnace oxidation. A GaN template was grown by horizontalhydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE), and FS-GaN was fabricated using the laser lift off (LLO) system. To obtain β-Ga₂O₃ thin film, FS-GaN was oxidized at 900~1,100℃. Surface and cross-section of prepared β-Ga₂O₃ thin films were observed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The single crystal FS-GaNs were changed to poly-crystal β-Ga₂O₃. The oxidized β-Ga₂O₃ thin film at 1,100℃ was peel off from FS-GaN. Next, oxidation of FS-GaNwas investigated for 0.5~12 hours with variation of the oxidation time. The thicknesses of β-Ga₂O₃ thin films were measured from 100 nm to 1,200 nm. Moreover, the 2-theta XRD result indicated that (-201), (-402), and (-603) peaks were confirmed. The intensity of peaks was increased with increased oxidation time. The β-Ga₂O₃ thin film was generated to oxidize FS-GaN.

We investigated and compared two methods of in-situ oxidation and chemical etching treatment (CET) to remove the boron rich layer (BRL). The BRL is generally formed during boron doping process. It has to be controlled in order not to degrade carrier lifetime and reduce electrical properties. A boron emitter is formed using BBr3 liquid source at 930℃. After that, in-situ oxidation was followed by injecting oxygen of 1,000 sccm into the furnace during ramp down step and compared with CET using a mixture of acid solution for a short time. Then, we analyzed passivation effect by depositing Al2O3. The results gave a carrier lifetime of 110.9 ㎲, an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 635 mV at in-situ oxidation and a carrier lifetime of 188.5 ㎲, an Voc of 650 mV at CET. As a result, CET shows better properties than in-situ oxidation because of removing BRL uniformly.

The alumina substrates that Ni electrode was printed on and the multi-layered PTCR thermistors of which composition is (Ba_0.998Ce_0.002)TiO_3 + 0.001MnCO_3 + 0.05BN were fabricated by a thick film process, and the effect of re-oxidation temperature on their resistivities and resistance jumps were investigated, respectively. Ni electroded alumina substrate and the multi-layered PTC thermistor were sintered at l,150℃ for 2 h under PO_2= 10^-6 Pa and then re-oxidized at 600∼850℃ for 20 min. With increasing the re-oxidation temperature, the room temperature resistivity increased and the resistance jump (LogR_290/R_25) decreased, which seems to be related to the oxidation of Ni electrode. The small sized chip PTC thermistor such as 2012 and 3216 exhibits a nonlinear and rectifying behavior in I-V curve but the large sized chip PTC thermistor such as 4532 and 6532 shows a linear and ohmic behavior. Also, the small sized chip PTC thermistor such as 2012 and 3216 is more dependent on the re-oxidation temperature and easy to. be oxidized in comparison with the large sized chip PTC thermistor such as 4532 and 6532. So, the re-oxidation conditions of chip PTC thermistor may be determined by considering the chip size.

SiO2 layer grown by rapid thermal oxidation and SiNx layer were used for passivating the surface of n-type silicon solar cell, instead of only SiNx layer generally used in photovoltaic industry. The rapid thermal oxidation provides the reduction of processing time and avoids bulk life time degradation during the processing. Improvement of 30 mV in Voc and 2.7 mA/cm2 in Jsc was obtained by applying these two layers. This improvement led to fabrication of a large area (239 cm2) n-type solar cell with 17.34% efficiency. Internal quantum efficiency measurement indicates that the improvement comes from the front side passivation, but not the rear side, by using SiO2/SiNx stack.

Surface passivation of AlGaN/GaN heterojunction structure was examined through the thermal oxidation of evaporated Al. The Al-oxide passivation increased channel conductance of two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) on the AlGaN/GaN interface. The sheet resistance of 463 ohm/□ for 2DEG channel before Al2O3 passivation was decreased to 417 ohm/□ after passivation. The oxidation of Al induces tensile stress to the AlGaN/GaN structure and the stress seemed to enhance the sheet carrier density of the 2DEG channel. In addition, the Al2O3 films formed by thermal oxidation of Al suppressed thermal deterioration by the high temperature annealing.

In this work, local oxidation behavior in phosphorous ion-implanted 4H-SiC has been investigated by using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM-local oxidation (AFM-LO) has been performed on the implanted samples, with and without activation anneal, using an applied bias (~25 V). It has been clearly shown that the post-implantation annealing process at 1,650℃ has a great impact on the local oxidation rate by electrically activating the dopants and by modulating the surface roughness. In addition, the composition of resulting oxides changes depending on the doping level of SiC surfaces.

ZnO crystals with a baseball bat shape were synthesized without any catalysts through a simple thermal oxidation of ZnS powder in alumina crucible under air atmosphere. SEM images demonstrated that the bat structure was composed of two pieces of ZnO crystals, i.e hexagonal-shaped rod and inverted cone-shaped rod. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern revealed that the ZnO crystals had wurtzite hexagonal structure. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrum showed that the ZnO was of high purity. A strong green emission peak at 510 nm was observed in cathodoluminescece spectrum.

ZnO crystals with belt and comb shapes were synthesized without any catalysts through a simple thermal oxidation of ZnS powder in alumina crucible under air atmosphere. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern revealed that the ZnO crystals had wurtzite structure of hexagonal phase. Energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectra showed that the ZnO was of high purity. In the cathodoluminescece spectra obtained for the ZnO crystals with belt and comb shapes, a strong ultraviolet emission centered at 380nm was observed, which indicates the ZnO crystal has high crystalline quality.

ZnO nanostructures with tetrapod, needle and multipod shapes were synthesized without catalysts through a simple thermal oxidation of metallic Zn powder in alumina crucible under air atmosphere. X-ray diffraction data revealed that the ZnO nanostructures had wurtzite structure of hexagonal phase. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectra showed that the ZnO was of high purity. After the oxidation of Zn powder, white colored product was mainly observed and yellow colored product was observed only a very little on the surface of the oxidized source materials. The white product consisted of tetrapods, while yellow product was composed of needles and multipods. Cathodoluminescece spectra showed that the crystalline quality of tetrapods was better that those of needles and multipods.

We have been studied the effects of oxidant on the properties of Sr-ferrite magnets using mill scale for motor. The small-added (0.5 wt%) NaNO3 oxidant improved significantly the degree of oxidation and the grindability of mill scale, and then highly enhanced the magnetic properties of anisotropic Sr-ferrite sintered magnets; such as the remanent flux density from 3.55 to 3.80 kG, the intrinsic coercivity from 2.75 to 3.22 kOe, and the maximum energy product from 2.90 to 3.45 MGOe.

Copper pillar tin bump (CPTB) was developed for high density chip interconnect technology. Copper pillar tin bumps that have 100μm pitch were introduced with fabrication process using a KM-1250 dry film photoresist (DFR), copper electroplating method and Sn electro-less plating method. Mechanical shear strength measurements were introduced to characterize the bonding process as a function of thermo-compression. Shear strength has maximum value with 330℃ and 500 N thermo-compression process. Through the simulation work, it was proved that when the copper pillar tin bump decreased in its size, it was largely affected by the copper oxidation.

Abstract: Nanoporous titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) is very attractive material for various applications due to the high surface to volume ratio. In this study, we have fabricated nanoporous TiO(2) thin films on Si by anodic oxidation. 500-nm-thick titanium (Ti) films were deposited on Si by using electron beam evaporation. Nanoporous structures in the Ti films were obtained by anodic oxidization using ethylene glycol electrolytes containing 0.3 wt% NH(4)F and 2 vol% H(2)O under an applied bias of 5 V. The diameter of nanopores in the Ti films linearly increased with anodization time and the whole Ti layer could become nanoporous after anodizing for 3 hours, resulting in vertically aligned nanotubes with the length of 200～ 300 nm and the diameter of 50～80 nm. Upon annealing at 600℃ in air, the anodized Ti films were fully crystallized to TiO(2) of rutile and anatase phases. We believe that our method to fabricate nanoporous TiO(2) films on Si is promising for applications to thin-film gas sensors and thin-film photovoltaics.