• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.363-363
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• 2010

The high capillarity of a plastic fiber network having superhydrophilic Si-DLC coating is studied. Although the superhydrophilic surface maximize wetting ability on the flat surface, there remains a requirement for the more wettable surface for various applications such as air-filters or liquid-filters. In this research, the PET non-woven fabric surface was realized by superhydrophilic coating. PTE non-woven fabric network was chosen due to its micro-pore structure, cheap price, and productivity. Superhydrophobic fiber network was prepared with a coating of oxgyen plasma treated Si-DLC films using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). We first fabricated superhydrophilic fabric structure by using a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) non-woven fabric (NWF) coated with a nanostructured films of the Si-incorporated diamond-like carbon (Si-DLC) followed by the plasma dry etching with oxygen. The Si-DLC with oxygen plasma etching becomes a superhydrophilic and the Si-DLC coating have several advantages of easy coating procedure at room temperature, strong mechanical performance, and long-lasting property in superhydrophilicity. It was found that the superhydrophobic fiber network shows better wicking ability through micro-pores and enables water to have much faster spreading speed than merely superhydrophilic surface. Here, capillarity on superhydrophilic fabric structure is investigated from the spreading pattern of water flowing on the vertical surface in a gravitational field. As water flows on vertical flat solid surface always fall down in gravitational direction (i.e. gravity dominant flow), while water flows on vertical superhydrophilic fabric surface showed the capillary dominant spreading.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.265-265
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• 2010

고분자 소재(polycarbonate; PC)의 표면을 보호하고 광학적 특성을 유지하기 위해 산화물 다층 박막과 비정질 탄소 박막(diamond-like carbon; DLC)을 전자빔 증착(e-beam evaporation)과 이온빔 증착(ion-beam deposition)을 이용하여 고분자 소재에 코팅하였다. 전자빔 증착으로 코팅된 실리콘과 티타늄 산화물 다층 박막은 소재 표면에서 가시광선의 반사율을 낮추는 효과를 가지고 있어 다양한 광학 코팅분야에서 이용되고 있다. 비정질 탄소 박막은 경도가 높고 마찰계수가 낮기 때문에 기계부품의 수명향상을 향상하기 위해 주로 사용되며, 본 연구에서는 고분자 소재의 최상층에 코팅하여 보호막으로 이용하였다. 고분자 윈도우에 산화물 다층 박막을 코팅하면 코팅되지 않은 기판과 비교하여 투과율이 향상되었으며 보호막으로 코팅된 비정질 탄소 박막에 의해서 일어나는 투과율 저하를 부분적으로 상쇄하는 효과를 보였다. 산화물 다층 박막의 수는 광학 분야에서는 주로 5-7층을 이용하지만 고분자 소재는 코팅 공정이 길어지면 열 변형이 일어날 수 있기 때문에 산화막의 층수를 낮추는데 초점이 맞춰졌다. 5층과 3층으로 코팅된 산화물 박막 모두 투과율이 향상되었으며 3층에 비해서 5층의 투과율 향상효과가 큰 것으로 나타났다. 고분자 소재의 투과율은 평균 약 90%이었으며 산화물 다층 박막과 비정질 탄소 박막을 코팅한 후 투과율이 약 81%로 측정되었다. 비정질 탄소 박막과 산화물 다층 박막을 적절하게 설계하고 코팅한다면 고분자 소재의 보호막으로 이용될 수 있을 것으로 판단된다.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.2180-2186
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• 2002

In a micro-scale contact, capillary force and van der Waals interaction significantly influence the contact between asperities of rough surfaces. Little is, however, known about the variation of these surface forces as a function of chemical property of the surface (wet angle), relative humidity and deformation of asperities in the real area of contact. A better understanding of these surface forces is of great necessity in order to find a solution for reducing friction and adhesion of micro surfaces. The objective of this study is to investigate the surface forces in micro-scale rough surface contact. We proposed an effective method to analyze capillary and van der Waals forces in micro-scale contact. In this method, Winkler spring model was employed to analyze the contact of rough surfaces that were obtained from atomic force microscopy (AFM) height images. Self-mated contact of DLC(diamond like carbon) coatings was analyzed, as an example, by the proposed model. It was shown that the capillary force was significantly influenced by relative humidity and wet angle of the DLC surface. The deformation of asperities to a critical magnitude by external loading led to a considerable increase of both capillary and van der Waals forces.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.177-178
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• 2009

DLC (Diamond-like Carbon) 코팅막은 저마찰, 고경도, 낮은 표면조도 등의 우수한 특성을 갖는 박막 물질로 다양한 산업분야에서 그 코팅막의 활용을 목적으로 응용연구가 활발하게 이루어지고 있다. 본 연구에서는 플라즈마 화학기상증착(PCVD) 공정을 이용하여 바이어스, 진공도, 공정 온도 등의 코팅 조건 변수를 이용하여 DLC 코팅막을 제작하였다. 또한, 코팅막은 공정 조건에 따라 증착속도, 표면 및 단면 조직, 밀착력, 경도, 마찰계수 등의 특성을 평가하였다. 플라즈마 화학기상증착법을 이용한 DLC 코팅막 제조는 상온과 $175^{\circ}C$에서 이루어졌으며, 저온 중 DLC 코팅막 제조가 가능해짐에 따라 고분자 와 같은 저융점을 갖는 피처리물의 코팅처리가 가능하여 산업적 응용의 확대가 기대된다. SEM 표면 조직 관찰에 따른 DLC 코팅막의 표면조직과 조도는 공정조건에 따라 큰 차이는 보이지 않았지만, 밀착력에 있어서는 매우 큰 차이를 나타내었다. 스크래치 시험 결과 가장 높은 밀착력은 100 N 이상을 나타내었으며, 이 때의 마찰계수는 약 0.02를 나타내었다. 가장 낮은 마찰계수는 약 0.01을 보였으며, 이때의 밀착력은 25 N을 나타내었다. 증착속도는 바이어스 전압의 증가에 따라 증가하는 경향을 나타내었으며, 온도의 증가에 따라 감소하는 경향을 나타내었다.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.227-234
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• 2022

Recently, the demand for improving energy efficiency has rapidly increased because of the growing concerns over environmental issues. In this work, the tribo-test and simulation for the initial wear and lubrication performance were performed for the piston pin in the small end system of the connecting rod of a marine engine, to obtain useful data for improving the efficiency of marine engine systems. In addition, a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating was applied to the piston pin to explore feasibility of eliminating the bush used in the system. The initial wear and lubrication characteristics between the uncoated piston pin and bush were compared with that between the DLC-coated piston pin and connecting rod in the tribo-test. The simulation for the wear and lubrication performance according to the wear progression was conducted based on the data obtained from the test. The wear characteristics were quantitatively assessed by the wear depth and wear volume, and the lubrication performance was characterized with the change of pressure and minimum oil film thickness with respect to the crank angle. It was found that the DLC-coated piston pin may provide better initial wear characteristics and lubrication performance. The results of this work may provide fundamental information for marine engines with improved efficiency.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.3597-3601
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• 2013

In this study, a wet cleaning process, P II, using aqua-regia and sulfuric acid mixture with oxidant agent ($K_2S_2O_8$, $P_2O_5$, $KMnO_4$, $H_2O_2$ etc) is proposed to remove the metastable phase of graphite such as graphene and DLC for high quality synthetic diamonds. The process employed the conventional acid cleaning process (P I) as well as P I+P II to remove the graphite related impurities from the 200um-diamond powders synthesized at 7GPa-$1500^{\circ}C$-5minutes. The degree of cleaning after P I and P I+P II has been observed by naked-eye, optical microscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and TGA-DTA. After P I+P II, the color of diamond became more vividly yellow with enhanced saturation with naked eye and optical microscopy analysis. Moreover, the disappearance of diamond-like-carbon (DLC) peak ($1440cm^{-1}$) observed by Raman spectroscopy confirmed the decrease in amount of remaining impurities. TGA-DTA results showed that the graphite impurities first started to dissolve at $770.91^{\circ}C$ after PI process. However, the pyrolysis started at $892.18^{\circ}C$ after P I+P II process because of the dissolution of pure diamonds. This result proved the effective dissolution of the metastable phase of graphite. We expect that the proposed P II process may enhance the quality of diamonds through effective removal of surface impurities.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.260-266
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• 2002

DLC films were deposited on Si wafer by RF plasma assisted CVD using CH4 gas. Tribological tests were conducted using rotating type ball on disk friction tester in dry air. Four kinds of mating balls were used. The mating balls were made with stainless steel but apply different annealing conditions to achieve different hardness conditions. Testing results in all load conditions showed that the harder the mating materials, the lower the friction coefficient among the three kind of martensite mating balls. In case of austenite balls, the friction coefficients were lower than fully annealed martensite ball. The high friction coefficient in soft martensite balls seems to be caused by the larger contact area between DLC film and ball. The wear tracks of DLC films and mating balls could have proven that effect. Measuring the wear track of both DLC films and mating balls have similar tendency comparing to the results of friction coefficients. Wear rate of austenite balls were also smaller than that of fully annealed martensite ball. The results of effect of applying load showed, the friction coefficients were become decrease when the applying loads exceed critical load conditions. The wear track of mating balls showed that some material transfer occurs from DLC film to mating ball during the high friction process. Raman spectra analysis showed that transferred material was a kind of graphite and contact surface of DLC film seems to undergo phase transition from carbon to graphite during the high friction process.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.60-65
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• 2011

A low temperature plasma carburizing process was performed on AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel to achieve an enhancement of the surface hardness without degradation of its corrosion resistance. Attempts were made to investigate the influence of the processing temperatures on the surface hardened layer during low temperature plasma carburizing in order to obtain the optimum processing conditions. The expanded austenite (${\gamma}_c$) phase, which contains a high saturation of carbon (S phase), was formed on all of the treated surfaces. Precipitates of chromium carbides were detected in the hardened layer (C-enriched layer) only for the specimen treated at $550^{\circ}C$. The hardened layer thickness of ${\gamma}_c$ increased up to about $65{\mu}m$ with increasing treatment temperature. The surface hardness reached about 900 $HK_{0.05}$, which is about 4 times higher than that of the untreated sample (250 $HK_{0.05}$). A minor loss in corrosion resistance was observed for the specimens treated at temperatures of $300^{\circ}C{\sim}450^{\circ}C$ compared with untreated austenitic stainless steel. In particular, the precipitation of chromium carbides at $550^{\circ}C$ led to a significant decrease in the corrosion resistance. A diamond-like carbon (DLC) film coating was applied to improve the wear and friction properties of the S phase layer. The DLC film showed a low and stable friction coefficient value of about 0.1 compared with that of the carburized surface (about 0.45). The hardness and corrosion resistance of the S phase layer were further improved by the application of such a DLC film.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 1996

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon films were fabricated by low frequency(60Hz) Plasma enhanced Chemical vapor deposition(LF-PECVD) at room temperature. The LF_PECVD has a couple of advantages as follows: cheap, and the employment of low power density makes the damage of samples small. The a-C:H films deposited in this work were highly transparent(99%), highly resistance(109-1011${\Omega}$-cm), and very uniform. The samples were deposited by the decomposition of CH4 and H2 mixing gas in the pressure rate range of 1% to 30%. The deposition rates, optical gap, and hydrogen contents are increased with CH4 contents.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.135-135
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• 1999

It is well known that Raman spectroscopy is powerful tool in analysis of sp3/sp3 bonding fraction in diamond-like carbon(DLC) films. Raman spectra of DLC film is composed of D-peak centered at 1350cm-1 and G-peak centered at 1530cm-1. The sp3/sp3 fraction is qualitatively acquired by deconvolution method. However, in case of DLC film, it is generally observed that G-peak position shifts toward low wavenumber as th sp3 fraction increases. However, opposite results were frequently observed in ta-C films. ta-C film has much higher residual compressive stress due to its high sp3 fraction compared to the DLC films deposited by CVD method. Effect of residual stress on G-peak position is most recommendable parameter in Raman analysis of ta-C, due to its smallest fitting error among many parameters acquired by peak deconvolution of symmetric spectra. In current study, the effect of residual stress on Raman spectra was quantitatively evaluated by free-hang method. ta-C films of different residual stress were deposited on Si-wafer by modifying DC-bias voltage during deposition. The variation of the G-peak position along the etching depth were observed in the free-hangs of 20~30${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ etching depth. Mathematical result based on Airy stress function, was compared with experimental results. The more reliable analysis excluding stress-induced shift was possible by elimination of the Raman shift due to residual compressiove stress.