Fabrication and characterisation of magnetron sputtered copper thin films

Applications of copper (Cu) thin films have emerged from microelectronics to nanotechnology. The primary applications of Cu are as interconnects in microelectronics. With the rapid shrinking in the size of electronic devices, the Cu thin films play an essential role in conductors and optical data storage and surface-plasmon enhanced light absorption for photovoltaic materials for numerous nanoelectronic and nano-optoelectronic applications. Substrate heating in sputtering deposition process is an important consideration in microelectronics industries in growing variety of thin films for insulators, conducting and semiconducting layers for making of microelectronic components and devices. The change in temperature during sputtering deposition process will affect the manufacturing cost and also microelectronics device performance. Therefore, this research work is dedicated to the investigation into the influence of deposition process parameters such as deposition duration, sputtering power and working gas pressure on substrate heating in the magnetron sputtering deposition process. The results show that the heating effect during the sputtering process increases with increase in deposition duration, sputtering power and working gas pressure. Further this research work also describes the material properties Cu thin films fabricated using magnetron sputtering on silicon (Si) and glass substrates with various deposition parameters

Zinc Oxide Thin Films Fabricated with Direct Current Magnetron Sputtering Deposition Technique

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a very promising material for emerging large area electronic applications including thin‐film sensors, transistors and solar cells. We fabricated ZnO thin films by employing direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering deposition technique. ZnO films with different thicknesses ranging from 100 nm to 1020 nm were deposited on silicon (Si) substrate. The deposition pressure was varied from 12 mTorr to 25 mTorr. The influences of the film thickness and the deposition pressure on structural properties of the ZnO films were investigated using Mahr surface profilometer and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The experimental results reveal that the film thickness and the deposition pressure play significant role in the structural formation of the deposited ZnO thin films. ZnO films deposited on Si substrates are promising for variety of thin‐film sensor applications

Direct current magnetron sputter-deposited ZnO thin films

Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited on glass substrates at room temperature using direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering technique. The deposition pressure was varied from 12 mTorr to 25 mTorr. The influence of the deposition pressure on structural properties of the ZnO films was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The optical properties of the ZnO films were measured using Ocean Optics spectrometer. The experimental results reveal that the deposition pressure has an important role in the structural and optical properties of the ZnO films

Electronic Properties of Synthetic Shrimp Pathogens-derived DNA Schottky Diodes

The exciting discovery of the semiconducting-like properties of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and its potential applications in molecular genetics and diagnostics in recent times has resulted in a paradigm shift in biophysics research. Recent studies in our laboratory provide a platform towards detecting charge transfer mechanism and understanding the electronic properties of DNA based on the sequence-specific electronic response, which can be applied as an alternative to identify or detect DNA. In this study, we demonstrate a novel method for identification of DNA from different shrimp viruses and bacteria using electronic properties of DNA obtained from both negative and positive bias regions in current-voltage (I-V) profiles. Characteristic electronic properties were calculated and used for quantification and further understanding in the identification process. Aquaculture in shrimp industry is a fast-growing food sector throughout the world. However, shrimp culture in many Asian countries faced a huge economic loss due to disease outbreaks. Scientists have been using specific established methods for detecting shrimp infection, but those methods do have their significant drawbacks due to many inherent factors. As such, we believe that this simple, rapid, sensitive and cost-effective tool can be used for detection and identification of DNA from different shrimp viruses and bacteria