• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.35-40
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• 2005

The demand for small and high-capacity optical data storage devices has rapidly increased. The areal density of optical disk is increased using higher numerical aperture objective lens and shorter wavelength source. A wafer-scale stacked micro objective lens with a numerical aperture of 0.85 and a focal length of 0.467mm for the 405nm blue- violet laser was designed and fabricated. A diffractive optical element (DOE) was used to compensate the spherical aberration of the objective lens. Among the various fabrication methods for micro DOE, the UV-replication process is more suitable for mass-production. In this study, an 8-stepped DOE pattern as a master was fabricated by photolithography and reactive ion etching process. A flexible mold was fabricated for improving the releasing properties and shape accuracy in UV-molding process. In the replication process, the effects of exposing time and applied pressure on the replication quality were analyzed. Finally, the shapes of master, mold and molded pattern were measured by optical scanning profiler. The deviation between the master and the molded DOE was less than 0.1um. The efficiency of the molded DOE was measured by DOE efficiency measurement system which consists of laser source, sample holder, aperture and optical power meter, and the measured value was $84.5\%$.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.1 s.82
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• pp.34-41
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• 2006

Microlens arrays were fabricated by a modified LIGA process composed of the exposure of a PMMA (Polymethylmethacrylate) sheet to deep x-rays and subsequent thermal treatment. A successful modeling and analyses for microlens formation were presented according to the experimental procedure. A nickel mold insert was fabricated by the nickel electroforming process on the PMMA microlens arrays fabricated by the modified LIGA process. For the replication of microlens arrays having various diameters with different foci on the same substrate, both hot embossing and microinjection molding processes have been successfully utilized with the fabricated mold insert. Replicated microlenses showed very good surface roughness with the order of 1 nm. The focal lengths of the injection molded microlenses were successfully estimated theoretically and also measured experimentally.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.23-28
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• 2005

Microlens arrays were fabricated using a modified LIGA process based on the exposure of a PMMA (Polymethylmethacrylate) sheet to deep x-rays and subsequent thermal treatment. A successful modeling and analyses for microlens formation were presented according to the experimental procedure. A nickel mold insert was fabricated by the nickel electroforming process on the PMMA microlens arrays fabricated by the modified LIGA process. For the replication of microlens arrays having various diameters with different foci on the same substrate, the hot embossing and the microinjection molding processes have been successfully utilized with the fabricated mold insert. Fabricated microlenses showed good surface roughness than the mold insert. The focal lengths of the injection molded microlenses were successfully measured experimentally and also estimated theoretically.

• 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.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.447-456
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• 1996

Fracture surfaces of materials contain useful information ranging from crack path to the mechanism of fracture. Since limitation of electron transparency requires a sample in the form of thin foil for TEM observations, it is impossible to extract such information directly from the fracture surfaces. In this study, the method of surface replication from the ceramic fracture surface is employed to characterize the process of crack propagation in ceramic matrix composites using TEM analysis. The surface replica from the fracture surface in ceramic materials provides detailed surface morphology and more importantly, loosened particles on the fracture surface are collected. Electron diffraction and chemical composition analyses of these particles reveal crack path in the specimen. Furthermore, one can determine the mode of fracture by observing the fracture surface morphology from the image of replica. Two examples are given to illustrate the potential of the surface replication technique. In the first example, apparent toughness increase in $B_{4}C-Al$ composites at high strain rate is investigated by surface replication to elucidate the mechanism of fracture at different strain rates. The polytypes of SiC formed during the sintering of SiC-AlN composite and their effect on the fracture behavior of SiC-AlN composite are analyzed in the second example.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.305-310
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• 2004

The Hot Embossing Lithography(HEL) as a method for the fabrication of nanostructure with polymer is becoming increasingly important because of its simple process, low cost, high replication fidelity and relatively high throughput. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of hot embossing lithography as a nanoreplication technique. To grasp characteristics of nano patterning rheology by process parameters(embossing temperature, pressure and time), we have carried out various experiments by using the DVD(400nm pattern width) and Blu-ray nickel stamps(150nm pattern width). During the hot embossing process, we have observed the characteristics of the size effect. The quality of products made by hot embossing is affected by its cooling shrinkage. The demolding process at the glass transition temperature results in low quality because of the shrinkage of the polymer. Therefore, the quantification of the temperature condition is essential for the replication of high quality.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.160-166
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• 2004

In this study, a new algorithm, named as Contour Offset Algorithm(COA) is developed to fabricate precise features or patterns in the range of several micrometers by nano replication printing(nRP) process. In the nRP process, a femto-second laser is scanned on a photosensitive monomer resin in order to induce polymerization of the liquid monomer according to a voxel matrix which is transformed from the bitmap format file. After polymerization, a droplet of ethanol is dropped to remove the unnecessary remaining liquid resin and then only the polymerized figures with nano-scaled precision are remaining on the glass plate. To obtain more precise replicated features, the contour lines in voxel matrix should be modified considering a voxel size. In this study, the efficiency of the proposed method is shown through two examples in view of accuracy.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.1256-1263
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• 2012

The present study covers the ultrasonic patterning process to replicate micro-patterns on a polymer substrate. The ultrasonic patterning process uses ultrasonic waves to generate frictional heat between an ultrasonic horn and the polymer substrate, from which the surface region of the polymer substrate is softened sufficiently for the replication of micro-patterns. The ultrasonic patterning process can divided into two categories according to the direction of vibration transmission: direct patterning and indirect patterning. The direct patterning uses a patterned horn, and the ultrasonic vibration is transferred directly from the patterned horn to the substrate. On the contrary, the indirect patterning process uses a plain horn, and the micro-patterns are engraved on a mold that is located below the substrate. Thus, the micro-patterns are replicated as an indirect manner. In this study, these direct and indirect patterning processes are compared in terms of the replication characteristics. Additionally, the possibility of double-side patterning is also discussed in comparison with the conventional single-side patterning process.

• 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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• 2010.05a
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• pp.151-152
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• 2010