• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.305-313
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• 2004

A vacuum pressure-difference technique for making a nano-precision replica is investigated for various applications. Master patterns for replication were fabricated using a nano-replication printing (nRP) process. In the nRP process, any picture and pattern can be replicated from a bitmap figure file in the range of several micrometers with resolution of 200nm. A liquid-state monomer is solidified by two-photon absorption (TPA) induced by a femto-second laser according to a voxel matrix scanning. After polymerization, the remaining monomers were removed simply by using ethanol droplets. And then, a gold metal layer of about 30nm thickness was deposited on the fabricated master patterns prior to polydimethylsiloxane molding for preventing bonding between the master and the polydimethylsiloxane mold. A few gold particles attached on the polydimethylsiloxane stamp during detaching process were removed by a gold selecting etchant. After fabricating the polydimethylsiloxane mold, a nano-precision polydimethylsiloxane replica was reproduced. More precise replica was produced by the vacuum pressure-difference technique that is proposed in this paper. Through this study, direct patterning on a glass plate, replicating a polydimethylsiloxane mold, and reproducing polydimethylsiloxane replica are demonstrated with a vacuum pressure-difference technique for various micro/nano-applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.45-52
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• 2009

The research on miniature devices based on non-silicon materials, in particular polymeric materials has been attracting more and more attention in the research field of the micro/nano fabrication in recent years. Lost of applications and many literatures have been reported. However, the study on the micro thermal imprint process of glassy polymer is still not systematic and inadequate. The aim of this research I to obtain a numerical material model for an amorphous glassy polymer, polycarbonate (PC), which can be used in finite element analysis (FEA) of the micro thermal imprint process near the glass transition temperature (Tg). An understanding of the deformation behavior of the PC specimens was acquired by performing tensile stress relaxation tests. The viscoelastic material model based on generalized Maxwell model was introduced for the material near Tg to establish the FE model based on the commercial FEA code ABAQUS/Standard with a suitable set of parameters obtained for this material model form the test data. As a result, the feasibility of the established viscoelastic model for PC near Tg was confirmed and this material model can be used in FE analysis for the prediction and improvement of the micro thermal imprint process for pattern replication.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2019

In this study, the micro- and nano-particles were used and their shapes were transferred into the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film to fabricate the dry adhesives and their properties were investigated. The Cu nanoparticles of the sizes of 20 nm, 40 nm and 70 nm and the polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) beads of the size of $5{\mu}m$ were used to transfer their images and the resultant properties of the dry adhesives were compared. The effects of particle size and materials on the mechanical property, tensile adhesion strength, light transmittance, surface morphology, water contact angle were studied. The dry adhesives obtained from the transfer process of Cu nanoparticles with the size of 20 nm resulted in the enhancement of tensile adhesion strength more than 300% compared to that of the bare PDMS. The formation of nanostructure of large surface area on the surface of the PDMS film by the Cu nanoparticles may responsible for the improvement. This study suggests that the use of nanoparticles during the fabrication of PDMS dry adhesives is easy and effective and could be applied to the fabrication of the medical patch.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.101-105
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• 2006

We fabricated the nano $TiN_x$ by making of reaction between titanium powder and $Si_3N_4$ during planetary milling. The $TiN_x$ powder was sintered by spark plasma sintering machine after mixing with 50 wt% of titanium powder, and the sintered body was heat-treated at $850^{\circ}C$ in order to investigate its hardness property at the elevated temperature. We analyzed crystal structure by XRD. We observed the peaks of $TiN_{0.26}$ and TiN after 10 hours milling, and we observed TiN peak mainly after 20 hours milling. The reacted particle size distribution was investigated by FE-SEM. Increase of milling time, the size of reacted particles was decreased and the $10{\sim}20nm$ size of $TiN_x$ on the surface of titanium and $TiN_x$ was observed after 20 hours milling. The micro-Vickers hardness of mixed sintered body was about $1050kgf/mm^2$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.94-97
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• 2003

A precise fabrication technology of glass is increasingly demanded fer the latest Industrial applications of spherical lenses. micro-optical components, laser applications and so on. Most of cases, the surface roughness of glass is required to be minute for improving the optical characteristics. Then. the machining characteristics of SF-5 glass and quarts glass were studied by using the ELID grinding process to get mirror surface and productivity compared with a general lapping process. A rotary type grinder with ELID generator was used to make the mirror surface of glass and a Mitutoyo surface tester and a nano-hardness tester were also used to measure the grinded surface or glass. As the results of experiments. they showed that the surface roughness(Ra) of SF-5 glass was under 7.8 nm and that of quartz glass was under 3.0 nm using the # 8000 grinder. So, the possibility of highly efficient and accurate surface for optical components can be achieved by the ELID grinding process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.326-329
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• 2005

As a flexible method to fabricate sub-micrometer patterns, Focused Ion Beam (FIB) instrument and Self-Assembled Monolayer (SAM) resist are introduced in this work. FIB instrument is known to be a very precise processing machine that is able to fabricate micro-scale structures or patterns, and SAM is known as a good etch resistance resist material. If SAM is applied as a resist in FIB processing fur fabricating nano-scale patterns, there will be much benefit. For instance, low energy ion beam is only needed for machining SAM material selectively, since ultra thin SAM is very sensitive to $Ga^+$ ion beam irradiation. Also, minimized beam spot radius (sub-tens nanometer) can be applied to FIB processing. With the ultimate goal of optimizing nano-scale pattern fabrication process, interaction between SAM coated specimen and $Ga^+$ ion dose during FIB processing was observed. From the experimental results, adequate ion dose for machining SAM material was identified.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.104-109
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• 2021

Tactile sensors and integrated circuits that detect external stimuli have been developed for use in various industries. Most tactile sensors have been developed using the MEMS(micro electro-mechanical systems) process in which metal electrodes and strain sensors are applied to a silicon substrate. However, tactile sensors made of highly brittle silicon lack flexibility and are prone to damage by external forces. Flexible tactile sensors based on polydimethylsiloxane and using a multi-walled carbon nano-tube mixture as a pressure-sensitive material are currently being developed as an alternative to overcome these limitations. In this study, a manufacturing process of pressure-sensitive materials with low initial electrical resistance is developed and applied to the fabrication of flexible tactile sensors. In addition, flexible tactile sensors are developed with pressure-sensitive materials dispensed on a substrate with flexible mechanical properties. Finally, a study is conducted on the change in electrical resistance of pressure-sensitive materials according to the modulus of elasticity of the substrate.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.38-42
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• 2015

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a widely used material for replicating micro-structures because of its transparency, deformability, and easy fabrication. At the nanoscale, however, it is hard to fill a nanohole template with uncured PDMS. This paper introduces several simple methods by changing the surface energy of a nanohole template and PDMS elastomer for replicating 100nm-scale structures. In the case of template, pristine anodic aluminum oxide (AAO), hydrophobically treated AAO, and hydrophillically treated AAO are used. For the surface energy change of the PDMS elastomer, a hydrophilic additive and dilution solvent are added in the PDMS prepolymer. During the molding process, a simple casting method is used for all combinations of the treated template and modified PDMS. The nanostructured PDMS surface was investigated with a scanning electron microscope after the molding process for verification.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.635-643
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• 2016

Graphene has shown exceptional properties for high performance devices due to its high carrier mobility. Of particular interest is the potential use of graphene nanoribbons as field-effect transistors. Herein, we introduce a facile approach to the fabrication of graphene nanoribbon (GNR) arrays with ~200 nm width using nanoimprint lithography (NIL), which is a simple and robust method for patterning with high fidelity over a large area. To realize a 2D material-based device, we integrated the graphene nanoribbon arrays in field effect transistors (GNR-FETs) using conventional lithography and metallization on highly-doped $Si/SiO_2$ substrate. Consequently, we observed an enhancement of the performance of the GNR-transistors compared to that of the micro-ribbon graphene transistors. Besides this, using a transfer printing process on a flexible polymeric substrate, we demonstrated graphene-silicon junction structures that use CVD grown graphene as flexible electrodes for Si based transistors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.40-43
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• 2004

Stamps for microcontact processing are fabricated by casting elastomer such as PDMS on a master with a negative of the desired pattern. After curing, the PDMS stamp is peeled away from the master and exposed to a solution of ink and then dried. Transfer of the ink from the PDMS stamp to the substrate occurs during a brief contact between stamp and substrate. Generally, negative-tone masters, which are used for making positive-tone PDMS stamps, are fabricated by using photolithographic technique. The shortcomings of photolithography are a relative high-cost process and require extensive processing time and heavy capital investment to build and maintain the fabrication facilities. The goal of this study is to fabricate a negative-tone master by using Nano-indenter based patterning technique. Various sizes of V-grooves and U-groove were fabricated by using the combination of nanoscratch and HF isotropic etching technique. An achieved negative-tone structure was used as a master in the PDMS replica molding process to fabricate a positive-tone PDMS stamp.