• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.439-444
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• 2006

An apparatus capable of melting and solidifying various materials containerlessly in high vacuum via electrostatic levitation (ESL) has been developed for finding materials with new or improved properties and further building a database for processing materials in microgravity. Containerless solidification of semiconductors, metals, and alloys such as Si, Zr, Nb, Mo, $V_3Si$, and boron carbides has been carried out to test how various materials at how high temperatures can be processed by ESL. The materials in levitation became spherical at melting by their own surface tensions which were ideal for measuring intrinsic thermophysical properties of materials in the liquid state. Multiple cycles of melting and cooling were reproducibly repeated and radiative cooling curves were recorded.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.93-100
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• 2023

A study of uncertainty analysis was conducted on four key thermophysical properties of molten Platinum using a noncontacting levitation technique. More specifically, this work demonstrates a detailed reporting of the uncertainties associated with the density, volumetric thermal expansion coefficient, surface tension and viscosity measurements at higher temperatures for a widely used refractory metal, Platinum using electrostatic levitation (ESL). The microgravity experiments were conducted using JAXA's Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF) facility on the International Space Station and the terrestrial experiments were conducted using NASA's Marshal Space Flight Center's ESL facility. The performance of these two facilities were then quantified based on the measurement precision and accuracy using the metrological International Standards Organization's Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty Measurement (GUM) principles.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.311-314
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• 1996

In contactless disk handling systems based on electrostatic suspension in which the stator is to be transferred, the limited stiffness in lateral direction severely restricts the achievable translational acceleration. In existing stator electrode pattern designs, the magnitude of the lateral force is determined by the magnitude of the control voltages which are applied to the individual electrodes to levitate the disk stably. As a result, the lateral force cannot be set arbitrarily. A new stator electrode pattern is presented for the electrostatic levitation of disk-shaped objects, in particular silicon wafers and aluminum hard disks, which allows the lateral forces to be controlled independently from the levitation voltages. Therefore, greater lateral forces can be obtained, compared with the existing stator designs. Experimental results will be presented for a 4-inch silicon wafer that clearly reveal the increased lateral stiffness by using the proposed stator electrode compared to the conventional electrode pattern.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.454-461
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• 2000

Electrostatic suspension offers an advantage of directly suspending various materials such as conductive materials, semiconductors and dielectric materials without any mechanical contacts. This is a specific feature compared with electromagnetic suspension which can suspend only ferro-magnetic material. In general, the electrostatic suspension systems require position sensors for stabilizing the suspended object. Therefore, a lot of displacement sensors and a switching circuit are required for moving the object through a long distance. In order to circumvent this problem, this paper proposes a self-sensing method which can provide the gap displacement between electrodes and suspended object without external sensors. Moreover a simple on-off controller is presented for stabilization. Experimental validation of the proposed scheme has been performed through the successful levitation of a 4-inch silicon wafer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.418-418
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• 2012

Synthesis of nanocrystalline diamond powder was investigated via a gas-to-particle scheme using the hot filament chemical vapor deposition. Effect of substrate surface seeding by nano diamond powder, and that of the electrical conductance of the substrate were studied. The substrate temperature, methane content in the precursor gas, filament-substrate distance and filament temperature were $670^{\circ}C$, 5% methane in hydrogen, 10 mm and $2400^{\circ}C$, respectively. The powder formation by gas-to-particle mechanism were greatly enhanced by the substrate seeding by the nano diamond powder. It was attributed to the removal of the electrostatic force between the substrate and the seeded nano diamond particle by the thermal electron shower from the hot filament, via the depolarization of the substrate surface or the attached diamond powder and subsequent levitation into the gas phase to serve as the gas-phase nucleation site. The powder formation was greatly favoured by the conducting substrate relative to the insulating substrate, which proved the actual effect of the electric static force in the powder formation.