As the minimum feature size in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices shrinks, the leakage current through the gate insulator (silicon oxide) will increase sufficiently to impair device operation. A high dielectric constant (k) insulator is needed as a replacement for silicon oxide in order to reduce this leakage. Hafnium-based materials are among the more promising candidates for the gate insulator, however, it is hampered by material quality and thus has been slow to be introduced into high volume integrated circuit production. Hafnium oxynitride films are deposited by Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) and downstream microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) employing different oxidants including O2, N2O, O2 plasma, N2O plasma, N2O/N2 plasma, and O2/He plasma in the current research. The effects of oxidants on deposition kinetics, morphology, composition, bonding structure, electrical properties and thermal stability of the resultant films each are investigated. The possible chemical/physical causes of these observations are developed and some mechanisms are proposed to explain the experimental results. Oxygen radicals, which are known of present in oxidizing environments are determined to play an essential role in defining both structures and the resultant electronic properties of deposited hafnium oxynitride films. This systematic investigation of oxidant effects on CVD grown hafnium oxide/oxynitride layers, in the absence of post-deposition annealing, provides new understanding to this area with potential importance to the integrated circuit industry.

The objectives of the proposed research are to model, optimize, and control variable frequency microwave (VFM) curing of polymer dielectrics. With an increasing demand for new materials and improved material properties, there is a corresponding demand for new material processing techniques that lead to comparable or better material properties than conventional methods. Presently, conventional thermal processing steps can take several hours. A new thermal processing technique known as variable frequency microwave curing can perform the same processing steps in minutes without compromising the intrinsic material properties. Current limitations in VFM processing include uncertain process characterization methods, lack of reliable temperature measuring techniques, and the lack of control over the various processes occurring in the VFM chamber. Therefore, the proposed research addressed these challenges by: (1) development of accurate empirical process models using statistical experimental design and neural networks; (2) recipe synthesis using genetic algorithms; (3) implementation of an acoustic temperature sensor for VFM process monitoring; and (4) implementation of neural control strategies for VFM processing. and #8194;

Magnetic nanocrystalline Eu2O3 (0.5 mol %) particles have been synthesized in a silica glass matrix by the sol-gel method at calcination temperatures of 700oC and above. X-ray and TEM studies reveal the nanocrystals with mean sizes in the range 4¡V8 nm, larger in the samples calcined at higher temperatures. The magnetization and magnetic hysteresis of Eu2O3 nanocrystals in the temperature range of 2-300K have demonstrated that the Eu2O3 nanocrystals in these glasses display superparamagnetic state. The temperature dependence of dielectric constant curves demonstrate a broad maximum around Tm ~ 270 K characteristic by diffuse phase transition (DPT). At the highest applied magnetic field 9 tesla, at superparamagnetic phase, the dielectric constant around Tm decreases almost ~ 1.5 (at 2.5 kHz) times compared with that at zero field for the sample calcined at 700¢J (~2 nm). The magnetodielectric effect observed in the glass composite is considered to be affected with the direct consequence of magnetoresistance changes which depends on the magnetic nanoparticle size and separation. Combustion mechanism is closely relate to the thermally activation oxygen vacancy. Such a material might be treated as a potential candidate for device miniaturization.

Dielectric resonator antennas(DRAs) offer some attractive characteristics over conventional microstrip antennas, such as small size, low profile, light weight, ease of excitation, and high radiation efficiency at higher frequency bands. Since DRAs attract more and more attention, theoretical analysis have been insufficient to simulate various configurations of dielectric resonator antennas. Therefore some researchers introduce numerical methods to analyze DRAs, such as Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method, Method of Moment (MoM), Finite Element Method (FEM). In this author, we apply two kinds of methods, including FDTD and MoM, to analysis DRA and compare the results applied these two methods. Then we simulate various configurations of dielectric resonator antennas using FDTD method. About designing the DRA construction, in this author we applied an equivalent approach to solve approximate dimensions of DRAs, and then we obtain accurate dimensions using FDTD method. In this author¡Aa DRA work at 5.8GHz have been proposed, then we using a L-shaped patch to increase impedance bandwidth. Above all, we hope to built a fast and accurate procedure to solve the resonant frequency, bandwidth, and far field pattern of DRAs. And to supply the engineer to reduce time consume in design DRAs.

Landslides are one of the most dangerous geological hazards. In the United States, landslides cause a damage of $ 3.5 billion and kill 25 to 50 people annually. Shallow landslides occurring near any transportation facilities (railways and highways) can cause economic loss and disturbance of services which lead to indirect economic loss. It also increases the maintenance cost of those facilities. Hence, facilities located near a shallow landslide prone area should be monitored so as to avoid any catastrophic damages. Soil moisture and movement of the soil mass are prime indicators of potential shallow slide movements. This assessment of wireless instruments considers a variety of devices ranging from devices for monitoring tilt and moisture at specific points in the soil mass to ground penetrating radar (GPR), which can give indications of moisture accumulation in soils over a wide spatial extent. For this assessment study, a low cost MEMS accelerometer was selected for measuring tilts and motions. And EC type soil moisture sensor was selected to measure soil moisture content of embankments. The instrumentation of railway embankments works effectively and cheaply when a suspected problem area has already been identified and monitoring is needed over a limited spatial extent. This makes the monitoring system highly localized which often fails to cover potentially new failure prone areas. It is not feasible to use this approach to monitor soil conditions along the entire alignment of the railway. Therefore, another approach, GPR, is defined and explained in this study. GPR measures the dielectric constant value for any given material including soils. In soils, the dielectric constant value depends on the volumetric amount of water content present in a soil. Due to moisture infiltration, there is a reduction in suction value on embankment which indicates a decrease in shear strength of slope. Therefore, a correlation between suction and dielectric constant value is formulated in this study using Complex Refractive index model/Time propagation (CRIM/TP) model for soils. To validate this theoretical correlation, a laboratory study was conducted on pure kaolinite and on normal soil. For pure kaolinite this correlation proves beneficial while, for other type of soil, the correlation was off due to the limitations in filter paper test to measure suction below 2.5pF.

Sol-gel process was utilized to produce organic/inorganic composite in this research, and the effect of mixing time¡]of polymer¡¦s and silica¡¦s precursor¡^ and coupling agent were investigated. To get low к materials was also the important objective. TMA, TGA, SEM, FT-IR, and RF impedance were used to investigate thermal properties, chemical bonding, morphology, and dielectric constant, respectively. The experiments showed that mixing time influence little to thermal stability but a lot to morphology and к. When mixing time was nearer to reaction time, the particle of silica was larger and the surface was flatter. The materials with coupling agent didn¡¦t show the same tendency as one without coupling agent. Regardless of coupling agent, it got larger к when mixing time was nearer to reaction time. Comparing with pure polymer, the modified materials got lower к. The lowest к got in this research was 2.36 which was lower than other materials.

When the size of display panel increased, the RC delay of TFTs became serious. High dielectric (high-k) materials used as the gate oxide can increase the gate oxide capacitance Co, which can induce a higher drain current, and higher aperture ratio. Therefore, low-k materials are used for inter-metal dielectrics. Thus, it can improve the RC delay. LPD-TiO2 film on a-Si and poly-Si technology and characterization of films were described in detail in this thesis. The highest dielectric constant of 11.76 and 29.54, and lowest leakage current density of 5.45¡Ñ10-7A/cm2 at -0.45 MV/cm and 3.11¡Ñ10-1 A/cm2 at 0.45 MV/cm for the O2-annealed of LPD-TiO2film on a-Si and poly-Si can be obtained.

This study has been carried out to develop and manufacture piezoelectric ceramic materials which are utilized for ultrasonic motor (USM) applications. For this purpose, the effect of compositional modifications on the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) based ceramics was investigated. PZT based powders were produced using the mixed oxide method. The base composition was selected as Pb(Zr0.54Ti0.46)O3. The samples in the proximity of morphotrophic phase boundary were doped with strontium, lanthanum, lead manganese niobate (PMnN) and lead manganese antimonate (PMS) in order to improve the structural characteristics and electromechanical properties which are very important for USM applications. The dielectric constant, planar coupling coefficient, mechanical quality factor, piezoelectric strain constant and tangent loss values were evaluated in accordance with standard IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) test procedures. The results on dielectric and piezoelectric properties showed that piezoelectric ceramics with high mechanical quality factor, high piezoelectric strain constant and low tangent loss could be produced by using the aforementioned dopants. As a result, a new piezoelectric ceramic named as 0.97[PSLZT]-0.024[PMnN]-0.006[PMS] was produced with KT= 1913, Qm= 1240, d33= 540 pC/N, tan delta= 0.89%, kp= 0.57 and Tc= 235 &deg / C. This composition is a good candidate for high power applications. The ceramic samples with the developed compositions were used to produce an ultrasonic-wave type motor and the performance of the USM was evaluated in terms of speed, torque and efficiency.

In this thesis, the leakage-mechanism after O2-plasma treatments was investigated. And the mechanism is transformed from Schottky emission into ionic conduction due to moisture uptake after porous silica film undergoes O2 plasma ashing. Besides, CMP process can to recover the damaged films by removed the degraded parts. From the result, we know that O2 plasma causing the bulky damage. Finally, the resistance of metal penetration of O2 plasma treated POSG is performed by utilizing BTS test. It was found that the moisture uptake in POSG films assisting metals in ionization process. Then, the penetrated metal ions in POSG film causes the leaky characters degraded.

The purpose of this thesis is to probe microscopic compositions and electronic structures at the high-£edielectric-semiconductor interfaces. The samples are prepared by electron beam evaporation, including Y2O3/Si, (Ga2O3-Gd2O3)/GaAs, Gd2O3/GaAs, Gd2O3/GaN and (Ga2O3-Gd2O3)/GaN. The thermal annealing effects on the interfacial properties have been investigated by depth-profiling X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with synchrotron radiation beam. The depth-profiling XPS data show the O-H bonding in all the measured oxide layers. For Y2O3/Si, the hydroxide can be removed by surface desorption at 300¢J, while a Y-Si-O-H state maintained at the interface. The data suggests that the Y-Si-O-H state is possibly formed in the deposition process. For (Ga2O3-Gd2O3)/GaAs, the hydroxide can be removed by surface desorption at 100¢J, and GaOx and GaOy intermediary states have been observed. For Gd2O3/GaAs, the hydroxide can be removed by surface desorption at 250¢J, and a GaOx intermediary state has been observed, and no arsenic oxides have been detected. For Gd2O3/GaN and (Ga2O3-Gd2O3)/GaN, a GaOx intermediary state and little N-O bonding have been observed. Comparing the XPS relative intensity of the N 1s states, (Ga2O3-Gd2O3)/GaN shows a more stable interface than Gd2O3/GaN.