• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.364-367
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• 2007

In nano-imprint lithography (NIL) process, which has shown to be a good method to fabricate polymeric patterns, several kinds of pattern defects due to thermal effects during polymer flow and mold release operation have been reported. A typical defect in NIL process with high aspect ratio and low resist thickness pattern is a resist fracture during the mold release operation. It seems due to interfacial adhesion between polymer and mold. However, in the present investigation, FEM simulation of NIL molding process was carried out to predict the defects of the polymer pattern and to optimize the process by FEA. The embossing operation in NIL process was investigated in detail by FEM. From the analytical results, it was found that the lateral flow of polymer resin and the applied pressure in the embossing operation induce the weld line and the drastic lateral strain at the edge of pattern. It was also shown that the low polymer-thickness result in the delamination of polymer from the substrate. It seems that the above phenomena cause the defects of the final polymer pattern. To reduce the defect, it is important to check the initial resin thickness.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is an emerging technology enabling cost-effective and high-throughput nanofabrication. To successfully imprint a nano-sized pattern, the process conditions such as temperature, pressure, and time should be appropriately selected. This starts with a clear understanding of polymer material behavior during the NIL process. In this work, the squeezing of thin polymer films into nanocavities during the thermal NIL has been investigated based upon a two-dimensional viscoelastic finite element analysis in order to understand how the process conditions affect a pattern quality. The simulations have been performed within the viscoelastic plateau region and the stress relaxation effect has been taken into account.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1838-1843
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• 2014

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) fabrication process is regarded as the main alternative to existing expensive photo-lithography in areas such as micro- and nano-electronics including optical components and sensors, as well as the solar cell and display device industries. Functional patterns, including anti-reflective moth-eye pattern, photonic crystal pattern, fabricated by NIL can improve the overall efficiency of such devices. To successfully imprint a nano-sized pattern, the process conditions such as temperature, pressure, and time should be appropriately selected. In this paper, a cavity-filling process of the moth-eye pattern during the thermal-NIL within the temperature range, where the polymer resist shows the viscoelastic behaviors with consideration of stress relaxation effect of the polymer, were investigated with three-dimensional finite element analysis. The effects of initial thickness of polymer resist and imprinting pressure on cavity-filling process has been discussed. From the analysis results it was found that the cavity filling can be completed within 100 s, under the pressure of more than 4 MPa.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.333-338
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• 2003

Nano-imprint lithography(NIL) is a polymer embossing technique, capable of transferring nano-scale patterns onto a thin film of thermoplastics such as polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) using this parallel process. Feature size down 10 nm have been demonstrated. In NIL, the pattern is formed by displacing polymer material, which can be squeeze flow of a viscous liquid. Due to the size of the pattern, a thorough understood of the process through experiments may be very different. Therefore we nead to resort to numerical simulation on the embossing process. Generally, there are two ways of numerical simulation on nano-scale flow, namely top-down and bottom-up approach. Top-down approach is a way to simulate the flow assuming that polymer is a continuum. On the contrary, in the bottom-up approach, simulation is peformed using molecular dynamics(MD). However, as latter method is not feasible yet. we chose the top-down approach. For the numerical analysis, two dimensional moving grid was used since the moving grid can predict the flow front. Effects of surface tension as well as the slip at the boundary were also considered.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 2005

In the UV-NIL process using an elementwise patterned stamp (EPS), which includes channels formed to separate each element with patterns, low-viscosity resin droplets with a nano-liter volume are dispensed on all elements of the EPS. Following pressing of the EPS, the EPS is illuminated with UV-light to cure the resin; and then the EPS is separated from several thin patterned elements on a wafer. Experiments on UV-NIL were performed on an EVG620-NIL. 50 - 100nm features of the EPS with 3m channels were successfully transferred to 4 in. wafers. Especially, the wafer deformation during imprint was analyzed using the finite element method (FEM) in order to study the effect of the wafer deformation on the UV-NIL using EPS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.167-170
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• 2005

The two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) diamond-like carbon (DLC) stamps for ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) were fabricated using two kinds of methods, which were a DLC coating process followed by the focused ion beam (FIB) lithography and the two-photon polymerization (TPP) patterning followed by nano-scale thick DLC coating. We fabricated 70 nm deep lines with a width of 100 nm and 70 nm deep lines with a width of 150 nm on 100 nm thick DLC layers coated on quartz substrates using the FIB lithography. 200 nm wide lines, 3D rings with a diameter of $1.35\;{\mu}m$ and a height of $1.97\;{\mu}m$, and a 3D cone with a bottom diameter of $2.88\;{\mu}m$ and a height of $1.97\;{\mu}m$ were successfully fabricated using the TPP patterning and DLC coating process. The wafers were successfully printed on an UV-NIL using the DLC stamp. We could see the excellent correlation between the dimensions of features of stamp and the corresponding imprinted features.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.55-60
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• 2020

The PERC photovoltaic (PV) modules installed in PV power plant are still reports potential-induced degradation (PID) degradation due to high voltage potential differences. This is because Na+ ions in the cover glass of PV modules go through the encapsulant (EVA) and transferred to the surface of solar cells. As positive charges are accumulated at the ARC (SiOx/SiNx) interface where many defects are distributed, shunt-resistance (Rsh) is reduced. As a result, the leakage current is increased, and decrease in solar cell's power output. In this study, to prevent of this phenomenon, a Moth-eye nanostructure was deposited on the rear surface of an optical film using Nano-Imprint Lithography method, and a solar mini-module was constructed by inserting it between the cover glass and the EVA. To analyze the PID phenomenon, a cell-level PID acceleration test based on IEC 62804-1 standard was conducted. Also analyzed power output (Pmax), efficiency, and shunt resistance through Light I-V and Dark I-V. As a result, conventional solar cells were decreased by 6.3% from the initial efficiency of 19.76%, but the improved solar cells with the Moth-eye nanostructured optical film only decreased 0.6%, thereby preventing the PID phenomenon. As of Moth-eye nanostructured optical film, the transmittance was improved by 4%, and the solar module output was improved by 2.5%.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2023

In conventional liquid crystal display(LCD) manufacturing process, Indium Tin Oxide(ITO) as transparent electrode and rubbing process of polyimide as alignment layer are essential process to apply electric field and align liquid crystal molecules. However, there are some limits that deposition of ITO requires high vacuum state, and rubbing process might damage the device with tribolectric discharge. In this paper, we made nanocomposite with PEDOT:PSS and MWNT to replace ITO and constructed alignment layer by nano imprint lithography with nano wrinkle pattern, to replace rubbing process. These replacement made that only one PEDOT:PSS/MWNT film can function as two layers of ITO and polyimide alignment layer, which means simplification of process. Transferred nano wrinkle patterns functioned well as alignment layer, and we found out lowered threshold voltage and shortened response time as MWNT content increase, which is related to increment of electric conductivity of the film. Through this study, it may able to contribute to process simplification, reducing process cost, and suggesting a solution to disadvantage of rubbing process.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.81.1-81.1
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• 2012

나노임프린트 리소그라피(Nano-Imprint Lithography, NIL) 기술은 기판위의 resin을 나노구조물이 각인된 스탬프로 눌러서 나노구조물을 형성하는 기술로, 경제적이고 효과적으로 나노구조물을 제작할 수 있는 기술이다. 그중에서도 UV 기반의 나노임프린트(UV-NIL) 기술은 resin을 투명한 스탬프로 누른뒤 UV로 경화시켜 나노구조물을 형성하는 기술로써 고온, 고압($140{\sim}180^{\circ}C$, 10~30bar)이 필요한 가열식 나노임프린트 기술에 비해 상온, 상압($20^{\circ}C$, 1bar)에서도 구조물 형성이 가능하여 다층구조 형성에 적합하다. 연속적인 임프린팅 공정에 의해 resin이 quarz 스탬프에 잔류하여 패터닝에 결함을 유발하게 되므로 오염물을 제거하기 위한 세정공정이 필요하다. 하지만 UV에 의해 경화된 resin은 cross-linking을 형성하여 화학적인 내성이 증가하게 되므로 제거하기가 어렵다. 현재는 resin 제거를 위한 세정공정으로 SPM($H_2SO_4/H_2O_2$) 세정이 사용되고 있는데 세정시간이 길고 세정 후에 입자 또는 황 잔유물이 남으며 많은 유해용액 사용의 문제점이 있어 효과적으로 resin을 제거할 세정공정이 필요한 상황이다. 본 연구에서는 친환경적인 UV 세정 및 오존수 세정공정을 적용하여 경화된 resin을 제거하는 연구를 진행하였다. 실험샘플은 약 100nm 두께의 resin을 증착한 $1.5cm{\times}1.5cm$ $SiO_2$ 쿠폰 wafer를 사용하였으며, UV 및 오존수의 처리시간을 달리하여 resin 제거효율을 평가하였다. ATR-FTIR 장비를 사용하여 시간에 따른 resin의 두께를 측정한 결과, UV 세정으로 100nm 높이의 resin중에 80nm의 bulk resin이 단시간에 제거가 되었고 나머지 20nm의 resin thin film은 오존수 세정으로 쉽게 제거되는 것을 확인 하였다. 또한 표면에 남은 resin residue와 particle을 제거하기 위해서 SC-1 세정을 진행하였고 contact angle과 optical microscope 장비를 사용하여 resin이 모두 제거된 것을 확인하였다.