• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.536-540
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• 2020

The support of the PEMFC membrane plays a key role in improving mechanical durability. The e-PTFE used as a support is chemically stable, so electro-chemical degradation in the PEMFC driving process has been rarely studied. In this study, we investigated whether e-PTFE is chemically stable to radicals and hydrogen peroxide during Fenton reaction. After the Fenton reaction, the main chain of e-PTFE broke, resulting in a change in the chemical structure and morphology of the support, resulting in a decrease in tensile strength. The results of this study showed that electrochemical degradation of the membrane ionomer in the PEMFC process occurs inside the membrane by radicals and hydrogen peroxide, so that electrochemical degradation may also occur at the e-PTFE support in the cell.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.94-103
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• 2007

The transition of interconnection metal from aluminum alloy to copper has been introduced to meet the requirements of high speed, ultra-large scale integration, and high reliability of the semiconductor device. Since copper, which has low electrical resistivity and high resistance to degradation, has different electrical and material characteristics compared to aluminum alloy, new related materials and processes are needed to successfully fabricate the copper interconnection. In this review, some important factors of multilevel copper damascene process have been surveyed such as diffusion barrier, seed layer, organic additives for bottom-up electro/electroless deposition, chemical mechanical polishing, and capping layer to introduce the related issues and recent research trends on them.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.235-238
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• 2009

To study the relationship between spark ignition and the gap in the nano-scale region, the electric potential was applied to between a Pt-Ir tip and a gold substrate. The tip was sharpened by electro-chemical etching process in the solution of $CaCl_2;H_2O$ and acetone. The radius of tip was measured to be around 200nm and attached to the scanning probe microscope to control the gap between the tip and the substrate. The electric potential of 10V to 80V was applied to initialize the spark. The gaps and the current profile were measured to analyze the characteristics of spark ignition. A spark sustaining time was measured to be between 50ns and 200ns depending on the applied electric potential and the gap between the electrodes. The continuous electric discharge was successfully sustained up to 1 second of spark or arc time. The developed process can be applicable to the micro-scale fabrication of automotive sensors as a similar concept of GTAW.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.528-528
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• 2007

Cu CMP widely has been using for the formation of multilevel metal interconnects by the Cu damascene process. And lower dielectric constant materials are required for the below 45nm technology node. As the dielectric constant of dielectric materials are smaller, the strength of dielectric materials become weaker. Therefore these materials are easily damaged by high down pressure during conventional CMP. Also, technical problems such as surface scratches, delamination, dishing and erosion are also occurred. In order to overcome these problems in CMP, the ECMP (electro-chemical mechanical planarization) has been introduced. In this process, abrasive free electrolyte, soft pad and low down force were used. The electrolyte is one of important factor to solve these problems. Also, additives are required to improve the removal rate, uniformity, surface roughness, defects, and so on. In this study, KOH and $NaNO_3$ based electrolytes were used for Cu ECMP and the electrochemical behavior was evaluated by the potentiostat. Also, the Cu surface was observed by SEM as a function of applied voltage and chemical concentration.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.151-156
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• 2015

In order to improve the properties of high-temperature superconducting wire for superconducting cable system, we optimized the electro-polishing (EP), ion-beam assisted deposition (IBAD), superconducting (SC) layer, and baking (heat) treatment. The buffer layer was deposited on electro-polished substrate with RMS roughness ($R_{RMS}$) less than 5 nm. The IBAD process was carried out at $V_{beam}$: 1100 V and $V_{accel}$: 850 V that resulted in highly crystalline film of $LaMnO_3$. Chemical composition of SC layer is key to higher critical current, and we found that composition can be determined by surface color of SC layer. We adopt a proprietary contorl system based on RGB analysis of the surface and achieved critical current of 150 A/4 mm-width. The proposed baking treatment resulted in decreasing of about 10% of fraction defects.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.191-195
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• 2008

Highly ordered silver nanowire with a diameter of 10 nm was arrayed by electroless deposition in a porous anodic aluminum oxide(AAO) membrane. The AAO membrane was fabricated electrochemically in an oxalic acid solution via a two-step anodization process, while growth of the silver nanowire was initiated by using electroless deposition at the long-range-ordered nanochannels of the AAO membrane followed by thermal reduction of a silver nitrate aqueous solution by increasing the temperature up to $350^{\circ}C$ for an hour. An additional electro-chemical procedure was applied after the two-step anodization to control the pore size and channel density of AAO, which enabled us to fabricate highly-ordered silver nanowire on a large scale. Electroless deposition of silver nitrate aqueous solution into the AAO membrane and thermal reduction of silver nanowires was performed by increasing the temperature up to $350^{\circ}C$ for 1 h. The morphologies of silver nanowires arrayed in the AAO membrane were investigated using SEM. The chemical composition and crystalline structure were confirmed by XRD and EDX. The electroless-deposited silver nanowires in AAO revealed a well-crystallized self-ordered array with a width of 10 nm.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.33-37
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• 2008

Polycarbonate has a high transmittance to light, low specific gravity, flexibility and cost-effectiveness that extends the application field of the polymer to bio-engineering, optics, electronic parts, etc. Moreover, electro plating of metallic film on PC could endow the parts the electromagnetic interference shielding capability. However, poor adhesion of copper on PC limited the wide usage in the industry. In this work, a composite(PC/ABS) and MmSH(Momentary mold Surface Heating) injection process were used to improve the plating characteristics; plating thickness, gloss and adhesion. Also plasma treatment and chemical treatment were employed for improving adhesion. Plating characteristics on PC/ABS were better than those on PC due to the anchoring effect of butadiene. MmSH injection process could ameliorate the gloss and coating adhesion. Also plating thickness and adhesion of PC and PC/ABS were increased by plasma treatment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.545-545
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• 2007

Recently, innovative process has been investigated in order to replace the conventional high-cost micro patterning processes on the electronic products. To produce desirable profit margins from this low cost products, printed circuit board(PCB), will require dramatic changes in the current manufacturing philosophies and processes. Innovative process using metal nano particles replaces the current industry standard of subtractive etched of copper as a highly efficient way to produce robust circuitry on low cost substrates. An advantage of using metal nano particles process in patterned conductive line manufacturing is that the process is additive. Material is only deposited in desired locations, thereby reducing the amount of chemical and material waste. Simply, it just draws on the substrate as glass epoxy or polyimide with metal nano particles. Particles, when their size becomes nano-meter scale, show some specific characteristics such as enhanced reactivity of surface atoms, decrease in melting point, high electric conductivity compared with the bulk. Melting temperature of metal gets low, the metal nano particles could be formated onto polymer substrates and sintered under $300^{\circ}C$, which would be applied in PCB. It can be getting the metal line of excellent electric conductivity.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.217-221
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• 2015

Developing a metallization that has low cost and high efficiency is essential in solar-cell industries, to replace expensive silver-based metallization. Ni/Cu two-step metallization is one way to reduce the cost of solar cells, because the price of copper is about 100 times less than that of silver. Alkaline electroless plating was used for depositing nickel seed layers on the front electrode area. Prior to the nickel deposition process, 2% HF solution was used to remove native oxide, which disturbs uniform nickel plating. In the subsequent step, a nickel sintering process was carried out in $N_2$ gas atmosphere; however, copper was plated by light-induced plating (LIP). Plated nickel has different properties under different bath conditions because nickel electroless plating is a completely chemical process. In this paper, plating bath conditions such as pH and temperature were varied, and the metal layer's structure was analyzed to investigate the adhesion of Ni/Cu metallization. Average adhesion values in the range of 0.2-0.49 N/mm were achieved for samples with no nickel sintering process.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.132-132
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• 2003

Second-order nonlinear optical(NLO) materials have been extensively studied for applications in photonic devices, such as frequency doubling and electro-optical(EO) modulation, because of their large optical nonlinearity, excellent processibility, low dielectric constant, and high laser damage thresholds. The poling behaviour of NLO chromophore in organic/inorganic matrixes showed the randomization of poled NLO chromophore in the absence of poling Held. The liquid crystal molecules in a droplet showed a long-range orientational order along a director. Therefore, liquid crystal effects on poling behaviour of NLO chromophore dispersed in organically modified inorganic sol-gel materials were investigated. Using sol-gel process for the development of NLO material has received increasing attention, Organically modifked inorganic NLO sol-Eel materials are obtained via incorporation of the organic NLO active chromophore into an alkoxysilane based inorganic network. One of the most important thing in this works was that tetraethoxysilane(TEOS) and methyltrimathoxysilane(HTMS) were used as precursor followed by hydrolysis and condensation without using any acidic catalyst during the process. The NLO chromophores in the liquid crystal nanodomains were well mixed with I/O hybrid matrix, deposited on transparent ITO-coated glasses. The poling behaviour of liquid crystal effects of NLO chromophore dispersed in I/O hybrid matrix were investigated by UV-vis spectroscopy. Size distribution and morphology of the NLO chromophores doped in the liquid crystal nanodomains dispersed in I/O hybrid matrix were investigated by SEM.