• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.367-374
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• 2000

This paper presents a method to fabricate freestanding structures by (100) silicon anisotropic etching and nickel electroless plating. The electroless plating process is simpler than the electroplating, and provides good coating uniformity and improved mechanical properties. Furthermore, the (100) silicon anisotropic etching in KOH solution with being aligned to <100> direction provides vertical (100) sidewalls on etched (100) surface. In this paper, the effects of the nickel electroless plating condition on the properties of electroless plated metal structures are investigated to apply fabrication of micro structures and then various micro structures are fabricated by nickel electroless plating. And then, the structures are released by silicon anisotropic etching in KOH solution with a large gap between the structure and the substrate. The fabricated cantilever structures are $210\mum$. wide, $5\mum$. thick and $15\mum$. over the silicon substrate, and the comb structure has the comb electrodes which are $4\mum$. wide and $4.3\mum$. thick separated by$1\mum$. It is released by silicon anisotropic etching in KOH solution. The gap between the structure and the substrate is $2.5\mum$.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.47 no.10
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• pp.675-680
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• 2009

Effects of $85^{\circ}C/85%$ Temperature/Humidity (T/H) treatment conditions on the peel strength of an electroless-plated Ni/polyimide system were investigated from a $180^{\circ}$ peel test. Peel strength between electroless-plated Ni and polyimide monotonically decreased from $37.4{\pm}5.6g/mm$ to $22.0{\pm}2.7g/mm$ for variation of T/H treatment time from 0 to 1000 hrs. The interfacial bonding mechanism between Ni and polyimide appears to be closely related to Ni-O bonding at the Ni/polyimide interface. The decrease in peel strength due to T/H treatment appears to be related to polyimide degradation due to moisture penetration through the interface and the bulk polyimide itself.