• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.529-543
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• 2020

In contrast to ventricular myocytes, the structural and functional importance of atrial transverse tubules (T-tubules) is not fully understood. Therefore, we investigated the ultrastructure of T-tubules of living rat atrial myocytes in comparison with ventricular myocytes. Nanoscale cell surface imaging by scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) was accompanied by confocal imaging of intracellular T-tubule network, and the effect of removal of T-tubules on atrial excitation-contraction coupling (EC-coupling) was observed. By SICM imaging, we classified atrial cell surface into 4 subtypes. About 38% of atrial myocytes had smooth cell surface with no clear T-tubule openings and intracellular T-tubules (smooth-type). In 33% of cells, we found a novel membrane nanostructure running in the direction of cell length and named it 'longitudinal fissures' (LFs-type). Interestingly, T-tubule openings were often found inside the LFs. About 17% of atrial cells resembled ventricular myocytes, but they had smaller T-tubule openings and a lower Z-groove ratio than the ventricle (ventricular-type). The remaining 12% of cells showed a mixed structure of each subtype (mixed-type). The LFs-, ventricular-, and mixed-type had an appreciable amount of reticular form of intracellular T-tubules. Formamide-induced detubulation effectively removed atrial T-tubules, which was confirmed by both confocal images and decreased cell capacitance. However, the LFs remained intact after detubulation. Detubulation reduced action potential duration and L-type Ca²⁺ channel (LTCC) density, and prolonged relaxation time of the myocytes. Taken together, we observed heterogeneity of rat atrial T-tubules and membranous ultrastructure, and the alteration of atrial EC-coupling by disruption of T-tubules.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.207-213
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• 2014

A study was carried out to fabricate the cutting tool geometry with micro/nanoscale on the single crystal diamond tool by using the FIB. The FIB technique is an ideal tool for TEM sample preparation that allows for the fabrication of electron-transparent foils. The FIB is appropriate techniques to sample and subsequently define the chemical composition and the structural state of mineral inclusion on the micro/nanoscale. The combination of FIB with a SEM allows for 3D information to be obtained from samples including 3D imaging. Cutting strategies were demonstrated to improve the performance of cutting tool geometry and to generate high aspect ratio micro cutting tool. A finely focused beam of 30keV Ga+ ions was used to mill cutting tool shapes for various micro patterns. Therefore FIB sputtering is used to shape a variety of cutting tools with dimensions in the $1-5{\mu}m$ range and cutting edge radii of curvature of under 50nm.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.22-26
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• 2016

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pellicle is one of the most concerned research in the field of EUV lithography (EUVL). Imaging performance of EUV mask with pellicle should be investigated prior to high volume manufacturing (HVM) of EUVL. In this paper, we analyzed the relationship between standoff distance and imaging performance of EUV mask to verify the influences of relative standoff distance on imaging performance. As a result, standoff distance of EUV pellicle has no effect on imaging performance of EUV mask such as critical dimension (CD), normalized image log slope (NILS) and image contrast. Therefore, pellicle support structure can be flexibly designed and modified in diverse ways to complement the thermal limitation of EUV pellicle membrane.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.51.2-51.2
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• 2015

Understanding interfacial phenomena has been one of the main research issues not only in semiconductors but only in life sciences. I have been trying to meet the atomic scale surface and interface analysis challenges from semiconductor industries and furthermore to extend the application scope to biomedical areas. Optical imaing has been most widely and successfully used for biomedical imaging but complementary ion beam imaging techniques based on mass spectrometry and ion scattering can provide more detailed molecular specific and nanoscale information In this presentation, I will review the 27 years history of medium energy ion scattering (MEIS) development at KRISS and DGIST for nanoanalysis. A electrostatic MEIS system constructed at KRISS after the FOM, Netherland design had been successfully applied for the gate oxide analysis and quantitative surface analysis. Recenlty, we developed time-of-flight (TOF) MEIS system, for the first time in the world. With TOF-MEIS, we reported quantitative compositional profiling with single atomic layer resolution for 0.5~3 nm CdSe/ZnS conjugated QDs and ultra shallow junctions and FINFET's of As implanted Si. With this new TOF-MEIS nano analysis technique, details of nano-structured materials could be measured quantitatively. Progresses in TOF-MEIS analysis in various nano & bio technology will be discussed. For last 10 years, I have been trying to develop multimodal nanobio imaging techniques for cardiovascular and brain tissues. Firstly, in atherosclerotic plaque imaging, using, coherent anti-stokes raman scattering (CARS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) multimodal analysis showed that increased cholesterol palmitate may contribute to the formation of a necrotic core by increasing cell death. Secondly, surface plasmon resonance imaging ellipsometry (SPRIE) was developed for cell biointerface imaging of cell adhesion, migration, and infiltration dynamics for HUVEC, CASMC, and T cells. Thirdly, we developed an ambient mass spectrometric imaging system for live cells and tissues. Preliminary results on mouse brain hippocampus and hypotahlamus will be presented. In conclusions, multimodal optical and mass spectrometric imaging privides overall structural and morphological information with complementary molecular specific information, which can be a useful methodology for biomedical studies. Future challenges in optical and mass spectrometric imaging for new biomedical applications will be discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnestics Society Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.230.1-230.1
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.1-1
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• 2011

We developed a new generalized synthetic procedure, called as "heat-up process," to produce uniform-sized nanocrystals of many transition metals and oxides without a size selection process. We were able to synthesize uniform magnetite nanocrystals as much as 1 kilogram-scale from the thermolysis of Fe-oleate complex. Clever combination of different nanoscale materials will lead to the development of multifunctional nano-biomedical platforms for simultaneous targeted delivery, fast diagnosis, and efficient therapy. In this presentation, I would like to present some of our group's recent results on the designed fabrication of multifunctional nanostructured materials based on uniform-sized magnetite nanoparticles and their medical applications. Uniform ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticles of <3 nm were synthesized by thermal decomposition of iron-oleate complex in the presence of oleyl alcohol. These ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticles exhibited good T1 contrast effect. In in vivo T1 weighted blood pool magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), iron oxide nanoparticles showed longer circulation time than commercial gadolinium complex, enabling high resolution imaging. We used 80 nm-sized ferrimagnetic iron oxide nanocrystals for T2 MRI contrast agent for tracking transplanted pancreatic islet cells and single-cell MR imaging. We reported on the fabrication of monodisperse magnetite nanoparticles immobilized with uniform pore-sized mesoporous silica spheres for simultaneous MRI, fluorescence imaging, and drug delivery. We synthesized hollow magnetite nanocapsules and used them for both the MRI contrast agent and magnetic guided drug delivery vehicle.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.35-39
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• 2016

Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) is the most promising technique in the field of Next Generation Lithography (NGL) expected to be used in the 1x-nm node for High Volume Manufacturing (HVM). But there exits remaining challenges for proper defect control of EUV mask. It was considered development of EUV pellicle for protecting the EUV mask has many obstacles due to high extinction coefficient of EUV wavelength. Recently researchers in the industry of semiconductor argue about the necessity of EUV pellicle and make effort to achieve it. In this paper, we investigated that the relationship between imaging performance and transmittance of EUV pellicle quantitatively. We made in-house EUV pellicle and analyzed its imaging performance of the dependence of pellicle transmittance using Coherent Scattering Microscopy(CSM). The imaging performance of EUV mask with pellicle is affected by its transmittance and we found that the performance of EUV mask improved with higher transmittance pellicle.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.9-13
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• 2013

The helium ion microscope (HIM) has recently emerged as a novel tool for imaging and analysis. Based on a bright ion source and small probe, the HIM offers advantages over the conventional field emission scanning electron microscope. The key features of the HIM include (1) high resolution (ca. 0.25 nm), (2) great surface sensitivity, (3) great contrast, (4) large depth-of-field, (5) efficient charge control, (6) reduced specimen damage, and (7) nanomachining capability. Due to the charge neutralization by flood electron beam, there is no need for conductive metal coating for the observation of insulating biological specimens by HIM. There is growing evidence that the HIM has substantial potential for high-resolution imaging of uncoated insulating biological specimens at the nanoscale.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.102-102
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• 2016

Water, which is most abundant in Earth surface and very closely related to all forms of living organisms, has a simple molecular structure but exhibits very unique physical and chemical properties. Even though tremendous effort has been paid to understand this nature's core substance, there amazingly still lefts much room for scientist to explore its novel behaviors. Especially, as the scale goes down to nano-regime, water shows extraordinary properties that are not observable in bulk state. One of such interesting features is the formation of nanoscale bubbles showing unusual long-term stability. Nanobubbles can be spontaneously formed in water on hydrophobic surface or by decompression of gas-saturated liquid. In addition, the nanobubbles can be generated during electrochemical reaction at normal hydrogen electrode (NHE), which possibly distorts the standard reduction potential at NHE as the surface nanobubble screens the reaction with electrolyte solution. However, the real-time evolution of these nanobubbles has been hardly studied owing to the lack of proper imaging tools in liquid phase at nanoscale. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that the behaviors of nanobubbles can be visualized by in situ transmission electron microscope (TEM), utilizing graphene as liquid cell membrane. The results indicate that there is a critical radius that determines the long-term stability of nanobubbles. In addition, we find two different pathways of nanobubble growth: i) Ostwald ripening of large and small nanobubbles and ii) coalescence of similar-sized nanobubbles. We also observe that the nucleation and growth of nanoparticles and the self-assembly of biomolecules are catalyzed at the nanobubble interface. Our finding is expected to provide a deeper insight to understand unusual chemical, biological and environmental phenomena where nanoscale gas-state is involved.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.174-180
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• 2011

Nondestructive surface imaging of elastic characteristic and mechanical property has been studied on nanoscale surface with ultrasonic AFM. Resonance frequency variation of cantilever is theoretically analyzed with respect to contact mechanics as well as experimentally measured. The contact resonance frequency is calculated theoretically using the spring-mass and Herzian model in accordance with the resonance frequency of UAFM cantilever measured experimentally. Consequently, the topography and amplitude images could be obtained successfully and the elastic characteristic at the nanoscale surface was evaluated qualitatively by amplitude signals.