• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.380-381
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• 2012

Bioinspired sea urchin-like structures were fabricated on silicon by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching using lens-like shape hexagonally patterned photoresist (PR) patterns and subsequent metal-assisted chemical etching (MaCE) [1]. The lens-like shape PR patterns with a diameter of 2 ${\mu}m$ were formed by conventional lithography method followed by thermal reflow process of PR patterns on a hotplate at $170^{\circ}C$ for 40 s. ICP etching process was carried out in an SF6 plasma ambient using an optimum etching conditions such as radio-frequency power of 50 W, ICP power of 25 W, SF6 flow rate of 30 sccm, process pressure of 10 mTorr, and etching time of 150 s in order to produce micron structure with tapered etch profile. 15 nm thick Ag film was evaporated on the samples using e-beam evaporator with a deposition rate of 0.05 nm/s. To form Ag nanoparticles (NPs), the samples were thermally treated (thermally dewetted) in a rapid thermal annealing system at $500^{\circ}C$ for 1 min in a nitrogen environment. The Ag thickness and thermal dewetting conditions were carefully chosen to obtain isolated Ag NPs. To fabricate needle-like nanostructures on both the micron structure (i.e., sea urchin-like structures) and flat surface of silicon, MaCE process, which is based on the strong catalytic activity of metal, was performed in a chemical etchant (HNO3: HF: H2O = 4: 1: 20) using Ag NPs at room temperature for 1 min. Finally, the residual Ag NPs were removed by immersion in a HNO3 solution. The fabricated structures after each process steps are shown in figure 1. It is well-known that the hierarchical micro- and nanostructures have efficient light harvesting properties [2-3]. Therefore, this fabrication technique for production of sea urchin-like structures is applicable to improve the performance of light harvesting devices.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.29-32
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• 2008

A back light unit (BLU) is a key module of a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD), frequently utilized in various mobile displays. In this study, we experimentally characterize transcription and optical properties of concave and convex microlens arrays (MLAs) of light guide plate (LGP) fabricated by injection molding with polycarbonate as a LGP substrate material. Nickel mold inserts were manufactured by electroforming on the MLA which was fabricated by the thermal reflow of photoresist microstructures patterned by UV-photolithography. For the case of convex microlens, the height of replicated microlens was less than that of the mold insert while maintaining almost the same microlens diameter of the mold insert as the location of the microlens is far from the gate. In contrast, for the concave microlens, the diameter of replicated microlens was larger than that of mold insert, while showing almost the same microlens height as the mold insert. From the optical examination of replicated convex and concave MLAs, it was found that a higher luminance of the LGP was achieved by the concave MLAs compared to the convex MLAs (about 30% enhancement in this case)due to the utilization of a larger amount of light provided by the light sources.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.15-20
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• 2009

In a detection system based on laser light scattering, focusing an excitation laser beam into a focal point of a channel in a microfluidic chip is important for obtaining the highest excitation intensity, and consequently for obtaining a laser light scattering signal using a photodetector with a high efficiency. In this paper, we present a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chip consisting of an integrated PDMS microlens for cell detection based on laser light scattering. We fabricated PDMS microlens for optical detection system by simply putting down on PDMS chips. The PDMS microlens was fabricated by photoresist reflow and replica molding. This fabrication technique is simple and has an excellent property in terms of the microlens and a high-dimensional accuracy. The PDMS microlens integrated on the PDMS microfluidic chip has been verified to improve the laser intensity, and accordingly, the signal-to-noise ratio and sensitivity of laser light scattering detection for red blood cells(RBCs)