Oxidation Resistive Cu Films by Room Temperature Surface Passivation with Thin Ag Layer

A displacement-deposited Ag layer was investigated as an oxidation barrier in damascene Cu structure for high performance interconnection. A 40 nm thick bright and continuous Ag film was formed at the surface of electrodeposited Cu by immersing the copper film into the silver displacement solution. The Ag film at Cu surface significantly blocked oxygen diffusion into the Cu film and retarded oxidation. More importantly, an elevated barrier performance for oxygen diffusion through elimination and stuffing of grain boundaries of Cu was observed upon annealing in a 400°C N2 atmosphere. Outward Cu diffusion through Ag layer controlled Cu oxidation when the surface was passivated with Ag layer

Direct Plating of Low Resistivity Bright Cu Films onto TiN Barrier Layer via Pd Activation

For seedless electroplating of low resistivity Cu film applicable to deep submicrometer damascene feature, Pd activation was introduced to direct Cu electroplating onto a high resistivity TiN barrier to get a high quality Cu film. Displacement-deposited Pd particles on the TiN substrate acted as nucleation sites for Cu plating. This high-density instantaneous nucleation made it possible to deposit a continuous, bright Cu film with low resistivity of 3.1 mV cm ~after annealing!. Aided by small amounts of benzotriazole, Pd activation also gave way to the application of seedless plating to superfilling of a deep submicrometer damascene structure, where the formation of the seed layer had been a critical issue. Poor adhesion between plated Cu and Pd activated TiN substrate was greatly improved by the addition of poly~ethylene glycol!. The change in film characteristics was found to be negligible

Cases of ethical violation in research publications: through editorial decision making process

Purpose – To improve and strengthen existing publication and research ethics, KODISA has identified and presented various cases which have violated publication and research ethics and principles in recent years. The editorial office of KODISA has been providing and continues to provide advice and feedback on publication ethics to researchers during peer review and editorial decision making process. Providing advice and feedback on publication ethics will ensure researchers to have an opportunity to correct their mistakes or make appropriate decisions and avoid any violations in research ethics. The purpose of this paper is to identify different cases of ethical violation in research and inform and educate researchers to avoid any violations in publication and research ethics. Furthermore, this article will demonstrate how KODISA journals identify and penalize ethical violations and strengthens its publication ethics and practices. Research design, data and methodology – This paper examines different types of ethical violation in publication and research ethics. The paper identifies and analyzes all ethical violations in research and combines them into five general categories. Those five general types of ethical violations are thoroughly examined and discussed. Results – Ethical violations of research occur in various forms at regular intervals; in other words, unethical researchers tend to commit different types of ethical violations repeatedly at same time. The five categories of ethical violation in research are as follows: (1) Arbitrary changes or additions in author(s) happen frequently in thesis/dissertation related publications. (2) Self plagiarism, submitting same work or mixture of previous works with or without using proper citations, also occurs frequently, but the most common type of plagiarism is changing the statistical results and using them to present as the results of the empirical analysis; (3) Translation plagiarism, another ethical violation in publication, is difficult to detect but occurs frequently; (4) Fabrication of data or statistical analysis also occurs frequently. KODISA requires authors to submit the results of the empirical analysis of the paper (the output of the statistical program) to prevent this type of ethical violation; (5) Mashup or aggregator plagiarism, submitting a mix of several different works with or without proper citations without alterations, is very difficult to detect, and KODISA journals consider this type of plagiarism as the worst ethical violation. Conclusions – There are some individual cases of ethical violation in research and publication that could not be included in the five categories presented throughout the paper. KODISA and its editorial office should continue to develop, revise, and strengthen their publication ethics, to learn and share different ways to detect any ethical violations in research and publication, to train and educate its editorial members and researchers, and to analyze and share different cases of ethical violations with the scholarly community

Development and evaluation of a plant-based air filter system for bacterial growth control

We investigated a novel plant-based air filter system for bacterial growth control. The volatile components released from the experimental plant (Cupressus macrocarpa) were used as the basis of the bacterial growth control and inhibition. We monitored the effect of light on the gas exhausted from the system, and we found that the presence of light induced an increase in the O2 concentration and a decrease in the CO2 concentration in the exhaust gas. A variety of Gram-positive and -negative bacteria was used to elucidate the effect of the exhaust gas on bacterial growth. In the Bacillus subtilis cultivation aerated with the exhaust gas (batch mode), we observed a decrease in the specific growth rate (μ = 0.227 h-1) compared with the control experiments (0.257 h-1). The same result was observed for the Staphylococcus aureus cultivation aerated with the exhaust gas. In the case of Gram-negative bacterial cultivation aerated with the gas, no significant inhibitory effect of the exhaust gas on the bacterial growth was observed. When the number of bacteria (B. subtilis) in a continuous culture was varied at different aeration rates (between 50 to 200 mL/min) using the exhaust gas, a prominent inhibitory effect was observed. Preliminary gas analysis showed that the major inhibitory factors in the exhaust gas are α- and β-pinene and linalool. The results show that the air filter system used in this study could be applied not only as a methodological aspect for estimating antibacterial activity but also for bacteria control in a given system.Keywords: Plant-based biofilter, Cupressus macrocarpa, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, α-pinene, β-pineneAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(16), pp. 2027-203

Effect of staining solutions on discoloration of resin nanocomposites

Purpose—To examine the effect of staining solutions on the discoloration of resin nanocomposites. Methods—Three resin nanocomposites (Ceram X, Grandio, and Filtek Z350) were light cured for 40 seconds at a light intensity of 1000 mW/cm2. The color of the specimens was measured in %R (reflectance) mode before and after immersing the specimens in four different test solutions [distilled water (DW), coffee (CF), 50% ethanol (50ET) and brewed green tea (GT)] for 7 hours/ day over a 3-week period. The color difference (ΔE*) was obtained based on the CIEL*a*b* color coordinate values. Results—The specimens immersed in DW, 50ET and GT showed a slight increase in L* value. However, the samples immersed in CF showed a decrease in the L* value and an increase in the b* value. CF induced a significant color change (ΔE*: 3.1~5.6) in most specimens but the other solutions induced only a slight color change. Overall, coffee caused unacceptable color changes to the resin nanocomposites