The electro-optic properties in Langmuir Blodgett films of poly (vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) are investigated in the crossover region between two and three dimensions. The absence of finite size effect is observed in the films thinner than 20 nm, which confirms that these films are two dimensional ferroelectrics. The copolymer LB film of P(VDF-TrFE) exhibits the largest electro-optic response(26 pm/V) at 10 layer thickness. The cross-over behavior of electro-optic effect around the 10layer thickness was discussed with the formation of nanomesa after thermal annealing.
Phase transition properties of the copolymer films of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and trifluoroethylene(TrFE), P(VDF-TrFE), were studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and polarization modulated ellipsometry (PME). XRD studies on both Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films and spin coated films exhibit conversions from ferroelectric phase to paraelectric phase at 108±2℃ on heating and paraelectric phase to ferroelectric phase at 78±2℃ on cooling. The presence of the ferroelectric-paraelectric phase transition is also confirmed by the PME technique for the first time in this study. PME was proved to be a very sensitive tool in the measurement of the structural changes at the nano-thickness films.
In this work, the etching characteristics of ZnO thin films were investigated using an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) of HBr/Ar/CHF3 gas mixtures. The plasma characteristics were analyzed by a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) and double langmuir probe (DLP). The surface reaction of the ZnO thin films was investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The etch rate of ZnO was measured as a function of the CHF3 mixing ratio in the range of 0-15% in an HBr:Ar=5:2 plasma at a fixed gas pressure (6mTorr), input power (700 W), bias power (200 W) and total gas flow rate(50sccm). The etch rate of the ZnO films decreased with increasing CHF3 fraction due to the etch-blocking polymer layer formation.