A detailed understanding of failure mechanisms in thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) can help develop reliable and durable TBCs for advanced gas turbine engines. One of the characteristics of failure in electron beam physical vapor deposited (EB-PVD) TBCs is the development of instability, named rumpling, at the interface between (Ni, Pt)Al bond coat and thermally grown oxide (TGO). In this study, thermal cycling at 1100°C with 1 hr dwell time was carried out on 25.4mm disc specimens of TBCs that consisted of EB-PVD coated ZrO2-7wt. %Y2O3, (Pt,Ni)Al bond coat, and CMSX-4 Ni-based superalloy. At specific fraction of lifetime, TBCs were examined by electron microscopy and photostimulated luminescence (PL). Changes in the average compressive residual stress of the TGO determined by PL and the magnitude of rumpling, determined by tortuosity from quantitative microstructural analyses, were examined with respect to the furnace thermal cyclic lifetime and microstructural evolution of TBCs. The combination of elastic strain energy within the TGO and interfacial energy at the interface between the TGO and the bond coat was defined as the TGO energy, and its variation with cyclic oxidation time was found to remain approximately constant ~135J/m2 during thermal cycling from 10% to 80% thermal cyclic lifetime. Parametric study at ~135J/m2 was performed and variation in residual stress with rumpling for different oxide scale thicknesses was examined. This study showed that the contribution of rumpling in residual stress relaxation decreased with an increase in TGO thickness. High pressure turbine blades serviced for 2843 hours and in the as coated form were also examined using electron microscopy and photostimulated luminescence. The difference in iv residual stress values obtained using PL on the suction and pressure sides of as-coated turbine blade were discussed. The presence of a thick layer of deposit on the serviced blade gave signals from stress free α-Al2O3 in the deposit, not from the TGO. The TGO growth constant data from the disc-shape TBCs, thermally cycled at 1100°C, and studies by other authors at different temperatures but on similar EB-PVD coated TBCs with (Pt, Ni)Al bond coat and CMSX-4 Nibased superalloy were used to determine the temperature profile at the YSZ/bond coat interface. The interfacial temperature profiles of the serviced blade and the YSZ thickness profile were compared to document the variable temperature exposure at the leading edge, trailing edge, suction and the pressure side.

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) are and have been the future of display technology for a minute. Looking back, display technology has moved from cathode-ray tube displays (CRTs) to liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Whereas CRT displays were clunky and had quite high powerconsumption, LCDs were thinner, lighter and consumed less energy. This technological shift has made it possible to create smaller and more portable screens, aiding in the development of personal electronics. Currently, however, LCDs place at the top of the display hierarchy is being challenged by OLED displays, providing higher pixel density and overall higher performance.OLED displays consist of thin layers of organic semiconductors, and are instrumental in the development of folding displays; small displays for virtual reality and augmented reality applications; as well as development of displays that are energy-efficient. In the creation of OLED displays, the organic semiconducting material is vaporized and adhered to a thin film through vapor deposition techniques. One way of aiding in the creation of organic electroluminescent (OEL) materials and OLEDs is through in silico analysis of sublimationtemperatures through machine learning. This master’s thesis inhabits that space, aiming to create a deeper understanding of the OEL materials through sublimation temperature prediction using ensemble learning (light gradient-boosting machine) and deep learning (convolutional neural network) methods. Through analysis of experimental OEL data, it is found that the sublimation temperatures of OLED materials can be predicted with machine learning regression using molecular descriptors, with an R2 score of ~0.86, Mean Absolute Error of ~13°C, Mean Absolute Percentage Error of ~3.1%, and Normalized Mean Absolute Error of ~0.56.

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Copper (Cu) has been the main choice of the metallization in advanced IC package technology. The epoxy molding compounds (EMC) and the solder flux used in the packaging devices can release ionic impurities. In the halide environment, the electrochemical migration (ECM) failure and corrosion related failure of copper redistribution layer (RDL) and the Cu bond pads respectively was studied. Electrolytic migration arises when the IC package undergoes testing as per JESD22-A110 standards (130oC, 85% RH for 96/256 hrs.). Copper migration is fundamentally an ionic process that requires an electrolyte, moisture, and bias. To accelerate the time for investigating these failures, it was important to benchmark the metrology for real time observation of ECM failure under high voltage. Metrology for electrochemical defect analysis (MEDA) was developed to provide insight on failure mechanism. The Cu RDL on wafer level chip scale package devices were tested by PEG drop test (PDT) using non-aqueous polyethylene glycol (PEG) matrix doped with ions (Cl-, ClO4-, SO4-) to simulate EMC environment. PDT was conducted to analyze the real time migration behavior of Cu electrodes using a potentiostat and microscope. A novel Cu-selective passivation coating was applied on Cu either by wet processes or chemical vapor deposition (CVD) that are IC manufacturing compatible. This Cu-selective passivation coating is thermally stable, strongly adheres to Cu, corrosion resistant, low cost and shows good potential to prevent ECM defects at the high voltage bHAST condition. FTIR and potentiodynamic polarization were utilized to characterize the Cu-selective passivation coating. Statistically union of selected analytical techniques help to acquire unique results about the chemical systems. Together, electrochemistry and spectroscopy help to gather chemical information about the composition near and on the electrode. Additionally, during the SnAgCu (SAC) solder ball bonding on the Cu wafer by mass reflow process, solder flux is used to reduce the native oxides on Cu and SAC solder ball. Post cleaning, residual amount of the solder flux corrodes the Cu wafer. Passivation coating is used as an organic solder preservative to avoid the solder flux while facilitating a good bond between the SAC solder ball and Cu wafer. We investigated the efficiency of the passivation coating in preventing the copper thermal oxidation. The intermetallic compound formation between the Cu wafer and SAC solder ball was studied on 2nm, 6nm, 30nm and 50nm passivated Cu wafer. Based on the SEM/EDS analysis 1.7 µm CuxSny IMC was formed on 2nm coated cu wafer with a Cu:Sn ratio of 1.8:1 & 0.13:1.

This dissertation tested the hypothesis that energy transferred from a plasma or plume can be used to optimize the structure, chemistry, topography, optical and electrical properties of pulsed laser deposited and sputtered thin-films of ZnO, a-BOxNy, and few layer 2H-WS2 for transparent electronics devices fabricated without substrate heating or with low substrate heating. Thus, the approach would be compatible with low-temperature, flexible/bendable substrates. Proof of this concept was demonstrated by first optimizing the processing-structure-properties correlations then showing switching from accumulation to inversion in ITO/a-BOxNy/ZnO and ITO/a-BOxNy/2H-WS2 transparent MIS capacitors fabricated using the stated processes. The growth processes involved the optimization of the individual materials followed by growing the multilayer stacks to form MIS structures. ZnO was selected because of its wide bandgap that is transparent over the visible range, WS2 was selected because in few-layer form it is transparent, and a-BOxNy was used as the gate insulator because of its reported atomic smoothness and low dangling bond concentration. The measured semiconductor-insulator interfacial trap properties fall in the range reported in the literature for SiO2/Si MOS structures. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Hall, photoluminescence, UV-Vis absorption, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements investigated the low-temperature synthesis of ZnO. All films are nanocrystalline with the (002) XRD planes becoming more prominent in films grown with lower RF power or higher pressure. Low power or high chamber pressure during RF magnetron sputtering resulted in a slower growth rate and lower energetic conditions at the substrate. Stoichiometry improved with RF power. The measurements show a decrease in carrier concentration from 6.9×1019 cm-3 to 1.4×1019 cm-3 as power increased from 40 W to 120 W, and an increase in carrier concentration from 2.6×1019 cm-3 to 8.6×1019 cm-3 as the deposition pressure increased from 3 to 9 mTorr. The data indicates that in the range of conditions used, bonding, stoichiometry, and film formation are governed by energy transfer from the plasma to the growing film. XPS characterizations, electrical measurements, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements reveal an increase in oxygen concentration, improved dielectric breakdown, and improved surface topography in a-BOxNy films as deposition pressure increased. The maximum breakdown strength obtained was ~8 MVcm-1, which is comparable to a-BN. Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) structures of a-BOxNy grown at 10 and 15 mTorr suggest a combination of field-enhanced Schottky emission and Frenkel-Poole emission are likely transport mechanisms in a-BOxNy. In comparison, better fitted data was gotten for field enhanced Schottky emission which suggests the more dominant mechanism. The static dielectric constant range is 3.26 – 3.58 for 10 and 15 mTorr films. Spectroscopic ellipsometry and UV-Vis spectroscopy measured a bandgap of 3.9 eV for 15 mTorr grown a-BOxNy. 2H-WS2 films were grown on both quartz and a-BOxNy which revealed that the XRD (002) planes became more prominent as substrate temperature increased to 400 oC. AFM shows nano-grains at lower growth pressure. Increasing the growth pressure to 1 Torr resulted in the formation of larger particles. XPS chemical analysis reveals improved sulfur to tungsten ratios as pressure increased. Sulfur deficient films were n-type, whereas sulfur rich conditions produced p-type films. Frequency dependent C-V and G-V measurements revealed an interface trap concentration (Nit) of 7.3×1010 cm-2 and interface state density (Nss) of 7.5×1012 eV-1cm-2 for the transparent ITO/a-BOxNy/ZnO MIS structures, and approximately 2 V was required to switch the a-BOxNy/ZnO interface from accumulation to inversion. Using 2H-WS2 as the channel material, the ITO/a-BOxNy/2H-WS2 required approximately 4 V to switch from inversion to accumulation in both n and p-channel MIS structures. Interface trap concentrations (Nit) of 1.6×1012 cm-2 and 3.2×1010 cm-2, and interface state densities (Nss) of 1.6×1012 eV-1cm-2 and 6.5×1012 eV-1cm-2 were calculated for n and p-channel 2H-WS2 MIS structures, respectively. The data from these studies validate the hypothesis and demonstrate the potential of ZnO, a-BOxNy, and few layer 2H-WS2 for transparent electronics.