• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.182-182
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• 2012

Plasma etching is used in various semiconductor processing steps. In plasma etcher, optical- emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used for in-situ endpoint detection. However, the sensitivity of OES is decreased if polymer is deposited on viewport or the proportion of exposed area on the wafer is too small. Because of these problems, the object is to investigate the suitability of using plasma impedance monitoring (PIM) and self plasma optical emission spectrocopy (SPOES) with statistical approach for in-situ endpoint detection. The endpoint was determined by impedance signal variation from I-V monitor (VI probe) and optical emission signal from SPOES. However, the signal variation at the endpoint is too weak to determine endpoint when $SiO_2$ and SiNx layers are etched by fluorocarbon on inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etcher, if the proportion of $SiO_2$ and SiNx area on Si wafer are small. Therefore, modified principal component analysis (mPCA) is applied to them for increasing sensitivity. For verifying this method, detected endpoint from impedance monitoring is compared with optical emission spectroscopy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.90.2-90.2
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• 2013

Vertically-aligned silicon nanostructure arrays (SNAs) have been drawing much attention due to their useful electrical properties, large surface area, and quantum confinement effect. SNAs are typically fabricated by chemical vapor deposition, reactive ion etching, or wet chemical etching. Recently, metal-assisted chemical etching process, which is relatively simple and cost-effective, in combination with nanosphere lithography was recently demonstrated for vertical SNA fabrication with controlled SNA diameters, lengths, and densities. However, this method exhibits limitations in terms of large-area preparation of unperiodic nanostructures and SNA geometry tuning independent of inter-structure separation. In this work, we introduced the layerby- layer deposition of polyelectrolytes for holding uniformly dispersed polystyrene beads as mask and demonstrated the fabrication of well-dispersed vertical SNAs with controlled geometric parameters on large substrates. Additionally, we present a new means of building in vitro neuronal networks using vertical nanowire arrays. Primary culture of rat hippocampal neurons were deposited on the bare and conducting polymer-coated SNAs and maintained for several weeks while their viability remains for several weeks. Combined with the recently-developed transfection method via nanowire internalization, the patterned vertical nanostructures will contribute to understanding how synaptic connectivity and site-specific perturbation will affect global neuronal network function in an extant in vitro neuronal circuit.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.183-187
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• 2007

The magnetron reactive ion etching (RIE) characteristics of polycrystalline (poly) 3C-SiC grown on $SiO_2$/Si substrate by APCVD were investigated. Poly 3C-SiC was etched by $CHF_3$ gas, which can form a polymer as a function of side wall protective layers, with additive $O_2$ and Ar gases. Especially, it was performed in magnetron RIE, which can etch SiC at lower ion energy than a commercial RIE system. Stable etching was achieved at 70 W and the poly 3C-SiC was undamaged. The etch rate could be controlled from $20\;{\AA}/min$ to $400\;{\AA}/min$ by the manipulation of gas flow rates, chamber pressure, RF power, and electrode gap. The best vertical structure was improved by the addition of 40 % $O_2$ and 16 % Ar with the $CHF_3$ reactive gas. Therefore, poly 3C-SiC etched by magnetron RIE can expect to be applied to M/NEMS applications.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.288-292
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• 2003

The fabrication of silicon nano-master with pillar structures using E-beam lithography and ICP etching was investigated for application of 2-dimensional polymer photonic crystal waveguides with air hole structures. Pillar structures with square, hexagon, dodecagon and circle were successfully fabricated. The diameters and structures of fabricated pillars were measured by CD-SEM and SPM-AFM. It was found that the optimal dose for complete circle pillar structures was 432 $\mu$C/$\textrm{cm}^2$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.237-240
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• 2005

The demand of micro electrical mechanical system (MEMS) bio/chemical sensor is rapidly increasing. To prevent the contamination of sensing area, a filtration system is required in on-chip total analyzing MEMS bio/chemical sensor. A nano-filter was mainly applied in some application detecting submicron feature size bio/chemical products such as bacteria, fungi and so on. We suggested a simple nano-filter fabrication process based on replication process. The mother pattern was fabricated by holographic lithography and reactive ion etching process, and the replication process was carried out using polymer mold and UV-imprinting process. Finally the nano-filter is obtained after removing the replicated part of metal deposited replica. In this study, as a practical example of the suggested process, a nano-dot array was replicated to fabricate nano-filter fur bacteria sensor application.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.11-15
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• 2010

Indium tin oxide (ITO) provides high electrical conductivity and transparency in the visible and near IR (infrared) wavelengths. Thus, it is widely used as a transparent electrode for the fabrication of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and organic light emitting diode displays (OLRDs), photovoltaic devices, and other optical applications. Lasers have been used for removing coating on polymer substrate for flexible display and electronic industry. In selective removal of ITO layer, laser wavelength, pulse energy, scan speed, and the repetition rate of pulses determine conditions, which are efficient for removal of ITO coating without affecting properties of the polymer substrate. ITO coating removal with a laser is more environmentally friendly than other conventional etching methods. In this paper, pattering of ITO film from polymer substrates is described. The Yb:KGW femtosecond laser processing system with a pulse duration of 250fs, a wavelength of 1030nm and a repetition rate of 100kHz was used for removing ITO coating in air. We can remove the ITO coating using a scanner system with various pulse energies and scan speeds. We observed that the amount of debris is minimal through an optical and a confocal microscope, and femtosecond laser pulses with 1030nm wavelength are effective to remove ITO coating without the polymer substrate ablation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.80-81
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• 2012

Recently, one of the critical issues in the etching processes of the nanoscale devices is to achieve ultra-high aspect ratio contact (UHARC) profile without anomalous behaviors such as sidewall bowing, and twisting profile. To achieve this goal, the fluorocarbon plasmas with major advantage of the sidewall passivation have been used commonly with numerous additives to obtain the ideal etch profiles. However, they still suffer from formidable challenges such as tight limits of sidewall bowing and controlling the randomly distorted features in nanoscale etching profile. Furthermore, the absence of the available plasma simulation tools has made it difficult to develop revolutionary technologies to overcome these process limitations, including novel plasma chemistries, and plasma sources. As an effort to address these issues, we performed a fluorocarbon surface kinetic modeling based on the experimental plasma diagnostic data for silicon dioxide etching process under inductively coupled C4F6/Ar/O2 plasmas. For this work, the SiO2 etch rates were investigated with bulk plasma diagnostics tools such as Langmuir probe, cutoff probe and Quadruple Mass Spectrometer (QMS). The surface chemistries of the etched samples were measured by X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer. To measure plasma parameters, the self-cleaned RF Langmuir probe was used for polymer deposition environment on the probe tip and double-checked by the cutoff probe which was known to be a precise plasma diagnostic tool for the electron density measurement. In addition, neutral and ion fluxes from bulk plasma were monitored with appearance methods using QMS signal. Based on these experimental data, we proposed a phenomenological, and realistic two-layer surface reaction model of SiO2 etch process under the overlying polymer passivation layer, considering material balance of deposition and etching through steady-state fluorocarbon layer. The predicted surface reaction modeling results showed good agreement with the experimental data. With the above studies of plasma surface reaction, we have developed a 3D topography simulator using the multi-layer level set algorithm and new memory saving technique, which is suitable in 3D UHARC etch simulation. Ballistic transports of neutral and ion species inside feature profile was considered by deterministic and Monte Carlo methods, respectively. In case of ultra-high aspect ratio contact hole etching, it is already well-known that the huge computational burden is required for realistic consideration of these ballistic transports. To address this issue, the related computational codes were efficiently parallelized for GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) computing, so that the total computation time could be improved more than few hundred times compared to the serial version. Finally, the 3D topography simulator was integrated with ballistic transport module and etch reaction model. Realistic etch-profile simulations with consideration of the sidewall polymer passivation layer were demonstrated.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.129-139
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• 1991

The method of etching tracks in PN-3 dosimeter has been applied to tracks of recoil protons from a neutron source. Both the etch and the detection response of PN-3 has been studied as a function of etched-track diameters against various parameters. We could obtain very useful informations about charge, energy, and mass of particles and the relationship between the track etching rate and the track forming procedure in order to analyze the particle recorded in the solid state track detector. The best etching condition could be found by means of changing the etching circumstances for various energies and particles in order to detect the charged particle accurately. It could be influenced widely that the polymer plastic detector could develep the detecting technique for the low energy level neutron and could be used as a neutron dosimeter in the radiation field such as the nuclear power station, the medical institute and the nondtructive testing institute.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.642-647
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• 2007

We investigated dry etching of acrylic (PMMA) in $O_2/N_2$ plasmas using a multi-layers electrode reactive ion etching (RIE) system. The multi-layers electrode RIE system had an electrode (or a chuck) consisted of 4 individual layers in a series. The diameter of the electrodes was 150 mm. The etch process parameters we studied were both applied RIE chuck power on the electrodes and % $O_2$ composition in the $N_2/O_2$ plasma mixtures. In details, the RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W.% $O_2$ in the plasmas was varied from 0 to 100% at the fixed total gas flow rates of 20 sccm. The etch results of acrylic in the multilayers electrode RIE system were characterized in terms of negatively induced dc bias on the electrode, etch rates and RMS surface roughness. Etch rate of acrylic was increased more than twice from about $0.2{\mu}m/min$ to over $0.4{\mu}m/min$ when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W. 1 sigma uniformity of etch rate variation of acrylic on the 4 layers electrode was slightly increased from 2.3 to 3.2% when RIE chuck power was changed from 75 to 200 W at the fixed etch condition of 16 sccm $O_2/4\;sccm\;N_2$ gas flow and 100 mTorr chamber pressure. Surface morphology was also investigated using both a surface profilometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The RMS roughness of etched acrylic surface was strongly affected by % $O_2$ composition in the $O_2/N_2$ plasmas. However, RIE chuck power changes hardly affected the roughness results in the range of 75-200 W. During etching experiment, Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) data was taken and we found both $N_2$ peak (354.27 nm) and $O_2$ peak (777.54 nm). The preliminarily overall results showed that the multi-layers electrode concept could be successfully utilized for high volume reactive ion etching of acrylic in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.129-130
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• 2008