• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.233-241
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• 2000

This paper presents comparative results of various commonly used anti-stiction methods for polysilicon surface micromachining using identical test structures. Four different types of cantilevers - single cantilevers, cantilevers with dimples, cantilevers with anti-stiction tip, cantilevers with plate - with different widths and lengths were employed as test structures. The detachment length of cantilevers was examined depending on the anti-stiction methods and test structure types. After sacrificial layer was removed, evaporation and sublimation drying methods were used in the drying step when takes place the stiction between structure and substrate. Various final rinsing liquids such as methanol, IPA, and DI water were employed to compare anti-stiction results depending on surface tension and rinsing temperature. For sublimation drying method, methanol was used as an intermediate rinsing liquid. Also, the influence of a stress gradient of the polysilicon was investigated by performing the identical anti-stiction experiments on identical test structures with a stress gradient. In conclusion, sublimation drying method showed superior results to various evaporation drying methods and hence it is considered the best method for releasing polysilicon microstructure in polysilicon surface micromachining.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.599-600
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• 2009

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.399-400
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• 2009

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.6
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• pp.962-967
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• 2017

The Diamond-Like-Carbon (DLC) coating is a new carbon-based amorphous material. Carbon ions in the plasma are electrically accelerated and collide with the substrate to form a thin film. This film has similar properties to diamonds such as high surface hardness, low coefficient of friction, corrosion resistance and durability that do not react with acids and bases. Also, since there is no thermal deformation, it can be printed at room temperature. and coated on almost all materials such as paper, polymer, ceramics and various metals even aspheric lens it is possible to mirror surface coating with excellent surface roughness. In this paper, we have analyzed the DLC film formed by Filtered Arc Ion Plating (Filtered AIP) process.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.149-154
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• 2005

Teflon like fluorocarbon thin films have been deposited on silicon and oxide molds as an antistiction layer for the hot embossing process by an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The process was performed at $C_4F_8$ gas flow rate of 2 sccm and 30 W of plasma power as a function of substrate temperature. The thickness of film was measured by a spectroscopic ellipsometry. These films were left in a vacuum oven of 100, 200 and $300^{\circ}C$ for a week. The change of film thickness, contact angle and adhesion and friction force was measured before and after the thermal test. No degradation of film was observed when films were treated at $100^{\circ}C$. The heat treatment of films at 200 and $300^{\circ}C$ caused the reduction of contact angles and film thickness in both silicon and oxide samples. Higher adhesion and friction forces of films were also measured on films treated at higher temperatures than $100^{\circ}C$. No differences on film properties were found when films were deposited on either silicon or oxide. A 100 nm silicon template with 1 to $500\;{\mu}m$ patterns was used for the hot embossing process on $4.5\;{\mu}m$ thick PMMA spun coated silicon wafers. The antistiction layer of 10 nm was deposited on the silicon mold. No stiction or damages were found on PMMA surfaces even after 30 times of hot embossing at $200^{\circ}C$ and 10 kN.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.86-90
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• 2006

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a novel method to fabricate nanometer scale patterns. It is a simple process with low cost, high throughput and high resolution. NIL process creates patterns by the mechanical deformation of imprint resist and physical contact process. This physical contact process causes the stiction between the resist and the stamp. Stiction becomes a key issue especially in the stamps including narrow pattern size and wide area during NIL process development. The antistiction layer coating using fluorocarbon is very effective to prevent this problem and ensure successful NIL. In this paper, the concept of antistiction coating is explained and different preparation methods for nanoimprinting are briefly discussed.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.230.2-230.2
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• 2005

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.9-16
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• 2000

In order to achieve stiction-free polysilicon surfaces, we have suggested a new class of chemical coating precursors and confirmed their excellent characteristics. The strategy is to adopt dialkyldichlorosilanes (DDS, $R2SiCl_2$) instead of monoalkyltrichlorosilanes (MTS, $RSiCl_3$) such as octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) or 1H,1H2H,2H-perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane (FDTS). Dichlorodimethylsilane (DDMS, $(CH_3)2SiCl_2$) in this study is commercially available DDS with two short chains. DDMS in aprotic media spontaneously deposits on the hydrophilic polysilicon surface, which is completely changed to hydrophobic one. When polysilicon surface is exposed to DDMS solution at room temperature, anti-stiction property and hydrophobicity are clearly comparable to FDTS. DDMS is even superior to MTS in reliability and easy handling, which provides high yield. Since interactions among precursor molecules are reduced, conglomeration both in homogeneous solution and on surface can be effectively avoided. Even the cantilevers of 3 mm in length can be protected successfully from the stiction and the final quality of the modified surfaces is much less dependent on temperature. And no difference was found between the processes in ambient environment and in dry box. In addition, DDMS has advantages of remarkably reduced process time and low cost.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.92-97
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• 2016

This paper presents design and simulation of wide band RF microswitch that uses electrostatic actuation for its operation. RF MEMS devices exhibit superior high frequency performance in comparison to conventional devices. Similar techniques that are used in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) can be employed to design and fabricate MEMS devices and traditional batch-processing methods can be used for its manufacturing. The proposed switch presents a novel design approach to handle reliability concerns in MEMS switches like dielectric charging effect, micro welding and stiction. The shape has been optimized at actuation voltage of 14-16 V. The switch has an improved restoring force of 20.8 μN. The design of the proposed switch is very elemental and primarily composed of electrostatic actuator, a bridge membrane and coplanar waveguide which are suspended over the substrate. The simple design of the switch makes it easy for fabrication. Typical insertion and isolation of the switch at 1 GHz is -0.03 dB and -71 dB and at 85 GHz it is -0.24 dB and -29.8 dB respectively. The isolation remains more than - 20 db even after 120 GHz. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of a metal contact switch that shows such a high and sustained isolation and performance at W-band frequencies with an excellent figure-of merit (fc=1/2.pi.Ron.Cu =1,900 GHz). This figure of merit is significantly greater than electronic switching devices. The switch would find extensive application in wideband operations and areas where reliability is a major concern.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2007

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a new lithographic method that offers a sub-10nm feature size, high throughput, and low cost. One of the most serious problems of NIL is the stiction between mold and resist. The antistiction layer coating is very effective to prevent this stiction and ensure the successful NIL results. In this paper, an antistiction layer was deposited by VSAM (vapor self assembly monolayer) method on silicon samples with FOTS (perfluoroctyltrichlorosilane) as a precursor for making an antistiction layer. A specially designed LPCVD (low pressure chemical vapor deposition) was used for this experiment. All experiments were achieved after removing the humidity. First, the evaporation test of FOTS was performed for checking the evaporation temperature at low pressure. FOTS was evaporated at 5 Tow and $110^{\circ}C$. In order to evaluate the temperature effect on antistiction layer, chamber temperature was changed from 50 to $170^{\circ}C$ with 0.1ml of FOTS for 1 minute. Good hydrophobicity of all samples was shown at about $110^{\circ}$ of contact angle and under $20^{\circ}$ of hysteresis. The surface energies of all samples calculated by Lewis acid/base theory was shown to be about 15mN/m. The deposited thicknesses of all samples measured by ellipsometry were almost 1nm that was similar value of the calculated molecular length. The surface roughness of all samples was not changed after deposition but the friction force showed relatively high values and deviations deposited at under $110^{\circ}$. Also the white circles were founded in LFM images under $110^{\circ}$. High friction forces were guessed based on this irregular deposition. The optimized VSAM process for FOTS was achieved at $170^{\circ}C$, 5 Torr for 1 hour. The hot embossing process with 4 inch Si mold was successfully achieved after VSAM deposition.