• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.38-43
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• 2019

Electrochemical etching is a popular process to apply metal patterning in various industries. In this study, the electrochemical etching using a patterned copper layer was proposed to fabricate multilayered structures. The process consists of electrodeposition, laser patterning, and electrochemical etching, and a repetition of this process enables the production of multilayered structures. In the fabrication of a multilayered structure, an etch factor that reflects the etched depth and pattern size should be considered. Hence, the etch factor in the electrochemical etching process using the copper layer was calculated. After the repetition process of electrochemical etching using copper layers, the surface characteristics of the workpiece were analyzed by EDS analysis and surface profilometer. As a result, multilayered structures with various shapes were successfully fabricated via electrochemical etching using copper layers.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.25-29
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• 2012

Micro machining technologies have been required to satisfy various conditions in a high-technology industry. Micro electrochemical process is one of the most precision machining methods. Micro electrochemical process has been divided into electrochemical etching through protective layer and electrochemical machining using ultrashort voltage pulses. Micro shaft can be fabricated by electrochemical etching. The various protective layers such as photo-resist, oxide layer and oxidized recast layer have been used to protect metal surface during electrochemical etching. Micro patterning on metal surface can be machined by electrochemical etching through protective layer. Micro hole, groove and structures can be easily machined by electrochemical machining using ultrashort voltage pulses. Recently, the groove with subnanometer was machined using AFM.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.482-488
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• 2012

To fabricate a precise micro metal mold, the electrochemical etching process has been researched. We investigated the electrochemical etching process numerically and experimentally to determine the etching tendency of the process, focusing on the current density, which is a major parameter of the process. The finite element method, a kind of numerical analysis, was used to determine the current density distribution on the workpiece. Stainless steel(SS304) substrate with various sized square and circular array patterns as an anode and copper(Cu) plate as a cathode were used for the electrochemical experiments. A mixture of $H_2SO_4$, $H_3PO_4$, and DIW was used as an electrolyte. In this paper, comparison of the results from the experiment and the numerical simulation is presented, including the current density distribution and line profile from the simulation, and the etching profile and surface morphology from the experiment. Etching profile and surface morphology were characterized using a 3D-profiler and FE-SEM measurement. From a comparison of the data, it was confirmed that the current density distribution and the line profile of the simulation were similar to the surface morphology and the etching profile of the experiment, respectively. The current density is more concentrated at the vertex of the square pattern and circumference of the circular pattern. And, the depth of the etched area is proportional to the current density.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.60-72
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• 1996

A photoetching process is widely used for small and high precision parts in machinery, electronic and semi-conductor industries. One of the high precision parts, grid is very important part of digitron which use electron display, and it is fabricated by only photoetching process because of high precision. In this study, to develop high precision digitron grid, characteristics of etching solution were investigated with electrochemical test, that was potentiodynamic test and immersion test in the ferric chloride solution and added some additives. Based on the electrochemical etching test, grid was fabricated by continuous photoetching process at various etching condition. From the result of measured line width and etching depth under-cut and etching factor were calculated. For the fabrication of 25$\mu\textrm{m}$ line width, optimal etching condition was etching temperature 40~$45^{\circ}C$, spray pressure 1.5kg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ and etching time 3~4min.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.638-643
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• 2013

Laser beam machining (LBM) is fast, contactless and able to machine various materials. So it is used to cut metal, drill holes, weld or pattern the imprinted surface. However, after LBM, there still leave burrs and recast layers around the machined area. In order to remove these unwanted parts, LBM process often uses electrochemical etching (ECE). But, the total thickness of workpiece is reduced because the etching process removes not only burrs and recast layers, but also the entire surface. In this paper, surface coating was performed using enamel after LBM on metal. The recast layer can be selectively removed without decreasing total thickness. Comparing with LBM process only, the surface quality of enamel coating process was better than that. And edge shape was also maintained after ECE.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 2011

Fabrication of porous silicon(PS) double layer by electrochemical etching is the first step in process of ultrathin solar cell using PS layer transfer process. The porosity of the porous silicon layer can be controlled by regulating the formation parameters such as current density and HF concentration. PS layer is fabricated by electrochemical etching in a chemical mixture of HF and ethanol. For electrochemical etching, highly boron doped (100) oriented monocrystalline Si substrates was used. Ths resistivity of silicon is $0.01-0.02\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. The solution composition for electrochemical etching was HF (40%) : $C_2H_5OH$(99 %) : $H_2O$ = 1 : 1 : 2 (by volume). In order to fabricate porous silicon double layer, current density was switched. By switching current density from low to high level, a high-porosity layer was fabricated beneath a low-porosity layer. Etching time affects only the depth of porous silicon layer.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.81.2-81.2
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• 2012

To fabricate a metal mold for injection molding, hot-embossing and imprinting process, mechanical machining, electro discharge machining (EDM), electrochemical machining (ECM), laser process and wet etching ($FeCl_3$ process) have been widely used. However it is hard to get precise structure with these processes. Electrochemical etching has been also employed to fabricate a micro structure in metal mold. A through mask electrochemical micro machining (TMEMM) is one of the electrochemical etching processes which can obtain finely precise structure. In this process, many parameters such as current density, process time, temperature of electrolyte and distance between electrodes should be controlled. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the result because it has low reliability and reproducibility. To improve it, we investigated this process numerically and experimentally. To search the relation between processing parameters and the results, we used finite element simulation and the commercial finite element method (FEM) software ANSYS was used to analyze the electric field. In this study, it was supposed that the anodic dissolution process is predicted depending on the current density which is one of major parameters with finite element method. In experiment, we used stainless steel (SS304) substrate with various sized square and circular array patterns as an anode and copper (Cu) plate as a cathode. A mixture of $H_2SO_4$, $H_3PO_4$ and DIW was used as an electrolyte. After electrochemical etching process, we compared the results of experiment and simulation. As a result, we got the current distribution in the electrolyte and line profile of current density of the patterns from simulation. And etching profile and surface morphologies were characterized by 3D-profiler(${\mu}$-surf, Nanofocus, Germany) and FE-SEM(S-4800, Hitachi, Japan) measurement. From comparison of these data, it was confirmed that current distribution and line profile of the patterns from simulation are similar to surface morphology and etching profile of the sample from the process, respectively. Then we concluded that current density is more concentrated at the edge of pattern and the depth of etched area is proportional to current density.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.50-56
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• 2001

Fabrication methods are shown to produce slender and cylindrical tungsten shafts by electrochemical etching. The shape of microshatf formed by electrochemical etching is determined by the combination of two conflicting factors, i.e., initial shape and diffusion layer. We can obtain a desirable shaft profile by adjusting the thickness gradient of diffusion layer. The diameter of microshaft is controlled by mathematical model based on relation between process parameters and diameter.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.257-265
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• 2021

In this study, we report niobium (Nb) with hierarchical porous structure produced by a one-pot, HF-free electrochemical etching process. It is proved experimentally that a well-defined hierarchical porous structure is produced from the combination of a limited repetition of pulse etching and high concentration of aggressive anion (i.e., SO₄^2-), which results in hierarchical pores with high order over 3. A formula is derived for the surface area of porous Nb as a function of the hierarchical order of pores while the experimental surface area is estimated on the basis of the electrochemical gas evolution rate on porous Nb. From the comparison of the theoretical and experimental surface areas, an in-depth understanding was gained about porous structure produced in this work in terms of the actual pore shape and hierarchical pore order.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.616-621
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• 2009

Reduction of optical losses in crystalline silicon solar cells by surface modification is one of the most important issues of silicon photovoltaics. Porous Si layers on the front surface of textured Si substrates have been investigated with the aim of improving the optical losses of the solar cells, because an anti-reflection coating(ARC) and a surface passivation can be obtained simultaneously in one process. We have demonstrated the feasibility of a very efficient porous Si ARC layer, prepared by a simple, cost effective, electrochemical etching method. Silicon p-type CZ (100) oriented wafers were textured by anisotropic etching in sodium carbonate solution. Then, the porous Si layers were formed by electrochemical etching in HF solutions. After that, the properties of porous Si in terms of morphology, structure and reflectance are summarized. The structure of porous Si layers was investigated with SEM. The formation of a nanoporous Si layer about 100nm thick on the textured silicon wafer result in a reflectance lower than 5% in the wavelength region from 500 to 900nm. Such a surface modification allows improving the Si solar cell characteristics. An efficiency of 13.4% is achieved on a monocrystalline silicon solar cell using the electrochemical technique.