Hydrogenated Indium Oxide (IOH) has been recognized as a high performance transparent conductive oxide (TCO) due to its excellent mobility (>100 cm2/Vs) and high transparency (>90%) in the visible and near infrared region of the spectrum. Plasma enhanced spatial atomic layer deposition (PESALD), a new type of deposition process developed recently at TNO has been used to perform the deposition of IOH in this project. Sputtering is a process conventionally used in the industry for the deposition of TCO. However, PESALD offers several benefits when compared to sputtering. The process is continuous, operated at atmospheric pressure allowing large area and high throughput processing. In addition to this, PESALD uses a fully remote plasma source to avoid any substrate damage caused by the bombardment of ions. Ion-induced substrate damage could sometimes pose a problem in magnetron plasma sputter deposition processes. Different process parameters like precursor pickup flow, gas concentration in the plasma, substrate velocity and reactor temperature were altered in order to find improved conditions for IOH depositions. A novel dimethylaminopropyl-dimethylindium (DADI) precursor was used and the impact of its use was studied at different process conditions. In order to find the more optimal conditions, the IOH layers were deposited and characterized on glass substrate. Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), Hall effect measurements, 4 point probe measurements, reflectance and transmittance measurements and X-ray diffraction were used for analysing growth, electrical, optical and structural properties of the layers. SCOUT software is also used for a better optical analysis of the films. Additionally, the degradation of the layers under damp heat and atmospheric conditions is investigated during the course of this project. Finally, the most optimum PESALD process parameters have been used to perform deposition of the TCO on CIGS solar cells.

The process of generating new therapeutics is a complex, highly demanding, and economically challenging procedure. From every 10.000 drug candidates that are introduced to the preclinical phase, only 5 are chosen to be tested for clinical trials. In order to overcome the challenges with current drug screening and toxicity tests, Organ-On-Chip (OOC) systems have been developed. OOCs mainly include a biocompatible membrane or a substrate on which cells or tissue slices are cultured. To perform drug screening tests, the OOC devices need to have a microchannel for drug delivery.
As an example of this class of devices, Brain-On-Chip is presented in this thesis which is developed by TU Delft in collaboration with Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). The chip houses a brain slice and electrical activity of the brain tissue is studied before and after cortical spreading depression (CSD) induction. The device consists of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane embedding a microchannel. The PDMS membrane houses the brain tissue and the microchannel delivers chemical needed for CSD induction to a specific region of the tissue.
The main goal of this project is fabrication of the microchannel. To do so, an ultra-thick photoresist (PR) has been characterized which is used for the microchannel fabrication. Unlike most of current OOC fabrications, the Brian-on-chip device presented in this study is fabricated by a clean-room compatible procedure. This may result in a mass-production fabrication and a rapid commercialization. This study aims to validate the Brain-On-Chip by mice brain tissue provided by LUMC. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to fabricate a clean-room compatible device for CSD induction.

Micro-hotplate and Micro-hotplate integrated Nano-reactors are a revolution for in-situ observations in Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) imaging. They currently operate at about 400oC without any problems. The SiNx membranes of micro-hotplate and Nano-reactors have integrated micro-heater along with electron transparent windows. The major problem is the shift in 'z' direction of the membranes as a function of pressure and temperature. This creates a change in focus during in-situ TEM imaging affecting the image quality. Net compressive forces can be a reason for bending of membranes, as far as temperature is concerned. Thus, introduction of residual tensile stress was considered to solve this problem. Simple COMSOL simulations were made using plate models to verify the effect of residual tensile stress in membranes as a function of temperature and pressure individually, as well as a combination of both. It was concluded that residual tensile stress does reduce thermal buckling. It also reduces the bulging due to pressure but bulging as a function of pressure can't be made zero. It also concludes thermal buckling is more dominant at lower pressure and pressure bulge is more dominant at higher pressure.

Different residual stress LPCVD SiNx films were deposited and material properties like Young's modulus, refractive index and density were characterized. A saturation to the deposition and residual tensile stress was found as a function of gas-ratio. Surface morphology and IR spectra were also determined using AFM and FTIR respectively. All the characterization done proves the change in material composition with fabrication parameters. The introduction of high residual stress questions the reliability of the membrane and hence, there was a need to check if high tensile residual stress doesn't break the membranes. Thus, a new device for wafer level pressure testing of membranes was designed and fabricated. The pressure bulge test was done and reflections were recorded for various pressure and stress levels. The membranes were found reliable up to a pressure of 1.5 bar. New generation of micro-hotplates were fabricated using this concept and an increment 400oC in the operating temperature of micro-hotplates and nano-reactors, without any-shift in 'z' direction due to temperature, was achieved.