A solvent free, highly concentrated silica-acryl monomer hybrid sol was synthesized using aqueous colloidal silica as a precursor. The effects of the silica particle size, type of surface treatment agent employed, and silica content on the formation of the hybrid sol were systematically studied. The optical and physical properties of the coating solution prepared using the hybrid sol were also characterized. The viscosity of the hybrid sol tended to decrease as the particle size of the silica and the molecular weight of the surface treatment agent increased. The PET substrate coated with MPTMS-Mix (mixture, 70 wt%) solution showed the highest surface hardness (6 H) and low surface roughness (Ra= 0.044 μm), which could be attributed to an increase in packing density caused by the infiltration of small particles into the pores formed between larger particles.
There is a need for the development of transparent conductive materials that are economical and environmentally friendly with exhibit low resistivity and high transmittance in the visible spectrum. In this study, the deposition rate and uniformity of Al-doped ZnO-thin films were improved by changing the Z-motion of the sputtering system. The deposition rate and the uniformity were determined to be 3.44 nm/min and 1.23%, respectively, under the 10 mm Z-motion condition. During O2 plasma treatment, the intrusion-type metal elements in the thin film were reduced, which contributed to an oxygen vacancy reduction in addition to structural stabilization. Moreover, the sheet resistance was more easily saturated.
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%.
The Ag thin film of YBCO (yttrium barium copper oxide) CC (coated conductor) protect the YBCO layer and, at the same time, affects the electrical characteristics of the YBCO CC. Therefore, YBCO CC with the commercialization of the Ag thin film layers makes it easy to establish a process, it can lead to a variety of characteristic changes in YBCO CC. In this paper, plasma surface treatment was carried out to facilitate the deposition of the Ag thin film and the deposition process of YBCO CC. Surface roughness from the test results was increased as the time of the plasma surface treatment increased from 5 to 20 minutes. On the other hand, the surface roughness was decreased for the time of the plasma surface treatment over 20 minutes. Furthermore, after depositing, the increasing of deposit amount and reduced lifting phenomenon showed a similar tendency with the rise time of surface roughness.
To provide the clear images from the direct light on electrical board and display devices, anti glare treatment of display cover glass is needed. In this study, the effects of surface treatment temperature, concentration, and etching solution coating thickness of the gel phase on optical elements control such as gloss, haze of reflected light and transmittance, were investigated. Cover glasses were treated at different coating thickness and additive concentration. The optical properties were examined using spectrophotometer, gloss and haze meter. The surface morphology and roughness were measured by the optical microscope and Ra measuring instrument. The etching rate and surface morphologies were dramatically affected by the concentration of acid additive in the viscous gel because of re-crystallization of components in the etching solution, hydrogel formation and coagulant after coating on glass substrate. In our experimental range, cover glass which is surface-treated with various optical properties as well as the morphology uniformity was obtained; in particular, optical properties could be controlled by etching solution coating thickness of the gel phase and the concentration of additive. The gloss was depended on the surface roughness and it showed the linear relationship between optical transmittance and haze of reflected light, respectively.
Recently, amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOSs) based thin-film transistors (TFTs) have received considerable attention for application in the next generation displays industry. The research trends of AOSs based TFTs investigation have focused on the high device performance. The electrical properties of the TFTs are influenced by trap density. In particular, the threshold voltage (Vth) and subthreshold swing (SS) essentially depend on the semiconductor/gate-insulator interface trap. In this article, we investigated the effects of Ar plasma-treated SiO2 insulator on the interfacial property and the device performances of amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) TFTs. We report on the improvement in interfacial characteristics between a-IGZO channel layer and gate insulator depending on Ar power in plasma process, since the change of treatment power could result in different plasma damage on the interface.
In this study, we fabricated the flexible pentacene TFTs with the polymer gate dielectric and contact printing method by using the silver nano particle ink as a source/drain material on plastic substrate. In this experiment, to lower the cross-linking temperature of the PVP gate dielectric, UV-Ozone treatment has been used and the process temperature is lowered to 90℃ and the surface is optimized by various treatment to improve device characteristics. We tried various surface treatments; O2 Plasma, hexamethyl-disilazane (HMDS) and octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) treatment methods of gate dielectric/semiconductor interface, which reduces trap states such as -OH group and grain boundary in order to improve the OTFTs properties. The optimized OTFT shows the device performance with field effect mobility, on/off current ratio, and the sub-threshold slope were extracted as 0.63 cm2 V-1s-1, 1.7 x 10(-6), and of 0.75 V/decade, respectively.