• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.999-1005
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• 2004

A new stamp fabrication technique for the soft lithography has been developed in the range of several microns by means of a nano-replication printing (nRP) process. In the nRP process, a figure or a pattern can be replicated directly from a two-tone bitmap figure with nano-scale details. A photopolymerizable resin was polymerized by the two-photon absorption which was induced by a femtosecond laser. After the polymerization of master patterns, a gold metal layer (about 30 ㎚ thickness) was deposited on the fabricated master patterns for the purpose of preventing a join between the patterns and the PDMS, then the master patterns were transferred in order to fabricate a stamp by using the PDMS (poly-dimethylsiloxane). In the transferring process, a few of gold particles, which were isolated from the master patterns, remained on the PDMS stamp. A gold selective etchant, the potassium iodine (KI) was employed to remove the needless gold particles without any damage to the PDMS stamp. Through this work, the effectiveness of the nRP process with the PDMS molding was evaluated to make the PDMS stamp with the resolution of around 200 ㎚.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1168-1170
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• 2005

Nanoimprint Lithography(NIL) has increasingly been recognized as a key manufacturing technology for nanosized feature. One of the most important task for nanoimprint lithography is to provide the imprinting stamp with low price. The Stamp fabricated with Si based material by e-beam lithography, RIE is extremely expensive and its throughput is very limited and PDMS replica is too soft to hold high imprinting pressure.(>5atm) In this study, we present the imprinting stamp which can be easily replicated from original mold and is based on PVC film. Replication of original Si mold to PVC film was done by Hot embossing technique, ($120^{\circ}C$ of Temperature, 20 atm applied) As small as 100nm patterns were successfully transferred into PVC film. The size of stamp was up to 100mm in diameter.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.676-679
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• 2005

Nano imprint Lithography (NIL) is regarded as one of the next-generation lithography technologies with EUV lithography, immersion lithography, Laser interference lithography. Because a Si wafer stamp and a quartz stamp, used to imprinting usually are very expensive and easily broken, it is suggested that master stamp is duplicated by PDMS and the PDMS stamp uses to imprint .For using the PDMS stamp, a thermally curable monomer resin was used for the imprinting process to lower pressure and temperature. As a result, NIL patterns were successfully fabricated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1493-1496
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• 2005

In this paper, we describe a simple, precise and low cost method of fabricating PDMS stamp for UV embossing. It is important to improve the replication quality of stamp because the accuracy of fabricated structure is related to that of the stamp in UV embossing. The PDMS stamp has been fabricated by the replica molding technology with ultrasonic vibration to eliminate micro-air bubbles during the fabrication process of PDMS stamp. Also, this fabrication to use ultrasonic vibration promotes PDMS solution to fill into micro channel and edge parts. We report the fabrication of an optical core using UV embossing with fabricated PDMS stamp. This fabricated core is $7\;\mu{m}\;at\;depth,\;6\;\mu{m}\;at\;width.\;This\;measured\;value\;has\;the\;difference\;below\;1\;\mu{m}$compared to the original stamp. The surface roughness of core is about 14 nm root mean square. This is satisfactory value to use low-loss optical waveguide. Our successful demonstration of precise replica technology presents an alternative approach for the stamp of UV embossing.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.153-159
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• 2004

In this study, a new process to pattern directly on a thin metal layer using improved nano replication printing (nRP) process is suggested to evaluate the possibilities of fabricating a stamp for nano-imprinting. In the nRP process, any figure can be replicated from a bitmap figure file in the range of several micrometers with nano-scaled details. In the process, liquid-state resins are polymerized by two-photon absorption which is induced by femto-second laser. A thin gold layer was sputtered on a glass plate and then, designed patterns or figures were developed on the gold layer by newly developed top-down building approach. Generally, stamps fur nano-imprinting have been fabricated by using the costly electron-beam lithography process combined with a reactive ion-etching process. Through this study, the effectiveness of the improved nRP process is evaluated to make a stamp with the resolution of around 200nm with reduced cost.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.624-627
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• 2003

Microcontact printing (uCP) of alkanethiols on gold was the first representative of soft-lithography processes. This is an attempt to enhance the accuracy of classical to a precision comparable with optical lithography, creating a low-cost, large-area, and high-resolution patterning process. Microcontact printing relies on replication of a pattered PDMS stamp from a master to form an elastic stamp that can be inked with a SAM solution(monolayer -forming ink) using either immersion inking or contact inking. The inked PDMS stamp is then used to print a pattern that selectively protects the gold substrate during the subsequent etch.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.4 s.193
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• pp.153-158
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• 2007

Recently nano imprint lithography to fabricate photonic crystal on polymer is preferred because of its simplicity and short process time and ease of precise manufacturing. But, the technique requires the precise mold as an imprinting tool for good replication. These molds are made of the silicon, nickel and quartz. But this is not desirable due to complex fabrication process, high cost. So, we describe a simple, precise and low cost method of fabricating PDMS stamp to make the photonic crystals. In order to fabricate the PDMS mold, we make the original pattern with designed hole array by finding the optimal electron beam writing condition. And then, we have tried to fabricate PDMS mold by the replica molding with ultrasonic vibration and pressure system. We have used the cleaning process to solve the detaching problem on the interface. Using these methods, we acquired the PDMS mold for photonic crystals with characteristics of a good replication. And the accuracy of replication shows below 1% in 440nm at diameter and in 610nm at lattice constant by dimensional analysis by SEM and AFM.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.9 s.240
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• pp.1169-1174
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• 2005

Imprint lithography is a promising method for high-resolution and high-throughput lithography using low-cost equipment. In particular, ultraviolet-nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) is applicable to large area imprint easily. We have proposed a new UV-NIL process using an elementwise patterned stamp (EPS), which consists of a number of elements, each of which is separated by channel. Experiments on UV-NIL are performed on an EVG620-NIL using the EPS with 3mm channel width. The replication of uniform sub 70 nm lines using the EPS is demonstrated. We investigate the nonuniformity of residual layer caused by wafer deformation in experiment with varying wafer thickness. Severely deformed wafer works as an obstacle in spreading of dropped resin, which causes nonuniformity of thickness of residual layer. Numerical simulations are conducted to analyze aforementioned phenomenon. Wafer deformation in the process is simulated by using a simplified model, which is a good agreement with experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.173-174
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• 2006

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.7 s.184
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• pp.138-145
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• 2006

A nanopatterning technique was proposed and demonstrated for low cost and mass productive process using the scanning probe lithography (SPL) and soft lithography. The nanometer scale structure is fabricated by the localized generation of oxide patterning on the H-passivated (100) silicon wafer, and soft lithography was performed to replicate of nanometer scale structures. Both height and width of the silicon oxidation is linear with the applied voltagein SPL, but the growth of width is more sensitive than that of height. The structure below 100 nm was fabricated using HF treatment. To overcome the structure height limitation, aqueous KOH orientation-dependent etching was performed on the H-passivated (100) silicon wafer. Soft lithography is also performed for the master replication process. Elastomeric stamp is fabricated by the replica molding technique with ultrasonic vibration. We showed that the elastomeric stamp with the depth of 60 nm and the width of 428 nm was acquired using the original master by SPL process.