• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.176-180
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• 2002

During the last two decades the laser beam has progressed from a sophisticated laboratory apparatus to an adaptable and viable industrial tool. Especially, in its welding mode, the laser offers high travel speed, low distortion, and narrow fusion and heat-affected zones (HAZ). The principal obstacle to selection of a laser processing method in production is its relatively high equipment cost and the natural unwillingness of production supervision to try something new until it is thoroughly proven. The major objective of this work is focused on the combined features of gas tungsten arc and a low-power cold laser beam. Although high-power laser beams have been combined with the plasma from a gas tungsten arc (GTA) torch for use in welding as early as 1980, recent work at the Ohio State University has employed a low power laser beam to initiate, direct, and concentrate a gas tungsten arcs. In this work, the laser beam from a 7 watts carbon monoxide laser was combined with electrical discharges from a short-pulsed capacitive discharge GTA welding power supply. When the low power CO laser beam passes through a special composition shielding gas, the CO molecules in the gas absorbs the radiation, and ionizes through a process known as non-equilibrium, vibration-vibration pumping. The resulting laser-induced plasma (LIP) was positioned between various configurations of electrodes. The high-voltage impulse applied to the electrodes forced rapid electrical breakdown between the electrodes. Electrical discharges between tungsten electrodes and aluminum sheet specimens followed the ionized path provided by LIP. The result was well focused melted spots.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.220-220
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• 2011

The Ne-Xe plasmas in dense plasma-focus device with coaxial electrodes were generated for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. The influence of gas mixture ratio, Ne-Xe (1, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 50%) mixture gas, on EUV emission measurement, EUV intensity and electron temperature in the coaxially focused plasma were investigated. An input voltage of 4.5 kV was applied to the capacitor bank of 1.53mF and the diode chamber was filled with Ne-Xe mixture gas at a prescribed pressure. The inner surface of the cylindrical cathode was lined by an acetal insulator. The anode was made of tin metal. The EUV emission signal of the wavelength in the range of 6~16 nm has been detected by a photo-detector (AXUV-100 Zr/C, IRD). The visible emission line was also detected by the composite-grating spectrometer of the working wavelength range of 200~1100 nm (HR 4000CG). The electron temperature is obtained by the optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and measured by the Boltzmann plot with the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.332-332
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• 2011

The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation, whose wavelength is from 120 nm down to 10 nm, and the energy from 10 eV up to 124 eV, is widely utilized such as in photoelectron spectroscopy, solar imaging, especially in lithography and soft x-ray microscopy. In this study, we have investigated the plasma diagnostics as well as the debris characteristics between the two types of dense plasma focusing devices with coaxial electrodes of Mather and hypocycloidal pinch (HCP), respectively. The EUV emission intensity, electron temperature and plasma density have been investigated in these cylindrical focused plasma along with the debris characteristics. An input voltage of 5 kV has been applied to the capacitor bank of 1.53 uF and the diode chamber has been filled with Ar gas at pressure ranged from 1 mTorr and 180 mTorr. The inner surface of the cathode was covered by polyacetal insulator. The central anode electrode has been made of tin. The wavelength of the EUV emission has been measured to be in the range of 6~16 nm by a photo-detector (AXUV-100 Zr/C, IRD). The visible emission has also been measured by the spectrometer with the wavelength range of 200~1,100 nm. The electron temperature and plasma density have been measured by the Boltzmann plot and Stark broadening methods, respectively, under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE).

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.147-154
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• 2011

Backscattered electrons (BSE) are generated at the impact of the primary electron beam on the specimen. BSE imaging provides the compositional contrast to resolve chemical features of sectioned block-face. A focused ion beam (FIB) column can be combined with a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) to ensure a dual (or cross)-beam system (FIB-FESEM). Due to the milling of the specimen material by 10 to 100 nm with the gallium ion beam, FIB-FESEM allows the serial block-face (SBF) imaging of plastic-embedded specimens with high z-axis resolution. After contrast inversion, BSE images are similar to transmitted electron images by transmission electron microscopy. As another means of SBF imaging, a specialized ultramirotome has been incorporated into the specimen chamber of FESEM ($3View^{(R)}$). Internal structures of plastic-embedded specimens can be serially revealed and analyzed by $3View^{(R)}$ with a large field of view to facilitate three-dimensional reconstruction. These two SBF approaches by FESEM can be employed to unravel spatial association of (sub)cellular entities for a comprehensive understanding of complex biological systems.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.171-175
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• 2017

Negative staining has been traditionally used for exosome imaging; however, the technique is limited to surface topology only and can cause staining artifacts. Therefore, to analyze the internal structure of exosomes, we employed a method of block preparation, thin sectioning, and electron tomography. In addition, an automatic serial sectioning technique with 15-nm thickness through focused ion beam was employed to observe the three-dimensional structure of exosomes of various sizes. Cryo-transmission electron microscopy revealed the near-to-native structure of exosomes.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.189-194
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• 2015

Backside Ar ion milling technique for the preparation of cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) specimens, and backside-ion milling combined with focused ion beam (FIB) operation for electron holography were introduced in this paper. The backside Ar ion milling technique offers advantages in preparing cross-sectional specimens having thin, smooth and uniform surfaces with low surface damages. The back-side ion milling combined with the FIB technique could be used to observe the two-dimensional p-n junction profiles in semiconductors with the sample quality sufficient for an electron holography study. These techniques have useful applications for accurate TEM analysis of the microstructure of materials or electronic devices such as arrayed hole patterns, three-dimensional integrated circuits, and also relatively thick layers (> $1{\mu}m$).

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.911-916
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• 2015

In the nano/micro scale, material properties are dependent on the size-scale of a structure. However, conventional micro-scale tensile tests have limitations to obtain reliable values of nano-scale material properties owing to residual stress and elastic slippage in the gripping/aligning process. The indenter-driven nano-scale tensile test provides prominent advantages simple testing device, high-quality nano-scale metallic specimen with negligible residual stress. In this paper, two-types of specimens (a specimen with multi-testing parts and a specimen with a single-testing part) are discussed. Focused ion beam (FIB) is employed to fabricate a nano-scale specimen from a thin nickel film. Using the specimen with a single-testing part, we obtained a nano-scale stress-strain curve of electroplated nickel film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.472-477
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• 2004

Miniaturization is the central theme in modern fabrication technology. Many of the components used in modem products are becoming smaller and smaller. The direct write FIB technology has several advantages over contemporary micromachining technology, including better feature resolution with low lateral scattering and capability of mastless fabrication. Therefore, the application of focused ion beam(FIB) technology in micro fabrication has become increasingly popular. In recent model of FIB, however the feeding system has been a very coarse resolution of about a few ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. It is not unsuitable to the sputtering and the deposition to make the high-precision structure in micro or macro scale. Our research is the development of nano stage of 200mm strokes and l0nm resolutions. Also, this stage should be effectively operating in ultra high vacuum of about 1$\times$10$^{-5}$ pa. This paper presents the concept of nano stages and the discussion of the material treatment for ultra tush vacuum.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1518-1521
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• 2005

The application of focused ion beam (FIB) technology in micro/nano machining has become increasingly popular. Its usage in micro/nano machining has advantages over contemporary photolithography or other micro/nano machining technologies such as small feature resolution, the ability to process without masks and being accommodating for a variety of materials and geometries This paper focus to apply the sputtering technology accumulated by experiments to 3d structure fabrication with high resolution. Therefore some verifications and discussions of the characteristics of FIB sputtering results according to focal length were described in this paper. And we suggested the definition of rectangular pattern profile and made the verifications of sputtering results based on definition of it.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.3 s.180
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• pp.56-60
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• 2006

A high-resolution shadow mask, or called a nanostencil was fabricated for high resolution lithography. This high-resolution shadowmask was fabricated by a combination or MEMS processes and focused ion beam (FIB) milling. 500 nm thick and $2{\times}2mm$ large membranes wore made on a silicon wafer by micro-fabrication processes of LPCVD, photolithography, ICP etching and bulk silicon etching. A subsequent FIB milling enabled local membrane thinning and aperture making into the thinned silicon nitride membrane. Due to the high resolution of the FIB milling process, nanoscale apertures down to 70 nm could be made into the membrane. By local deposition through the apertures of nanostencil, nanoscale patterns down to 70 nm could be achieved.