• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.295-295
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• 2014

일반적으로 박막 태양전지의 효율은 박막 종류에 따른 광 흡수율에 의해 결정되며, 이는 증착한 박막의 두께에 의해 결정된다. 증착한 박막의 두께가 두꺼워질수록 광 흡수율은 증가하지만, 박막 두께가 지나치게 두꺼워지면 열화 현상으로 인한 모듈의 효율 감소가 생기므로 적절한 박막의 두께가 요구된다. 특히 a-Si:H의 경우 가시광 영역에서 높은 흡수계수를 가지고 있어서 얇은 박막 두께로도 태양전지의 제작이 가능하지만, 동일한 박막 두께에서 효율을 더욱 향상시키기 위한 다양한 광 포획 기술에 대한 연구가 많이 진행 되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 자외선을 이용한 nano-imprint lithography 기술을 이용하여 a-Si:H 태양전지의 유리기판 위에 pattern을 삽입하여 광 산란 효과를 향상 시키고자 하였다. 또한 유리기판의 굴절률 (n=1.5)과 투명전극의 굴절률 (n=1.9)의 중간 값을 갖는 ZnO nanoparticles (n=1.7)이 분산 된 imprinting resin을 사용함으로써 점진적으로 굴절률을 변화시켜, 최종적으로 a-Si:H 층까지의 광 투과율을 높이고자 하였다. 제작한 기판의 종류는 다음과 같다. 첫 번째 기판으로는 유리기판 위에 ZnO nanoparticles이 분산 된 imprinting resin을 spin-coating 하여 점진적인 굴절률의 변화에 의한 투과도 향상을 확인하고자 하였다. 두 번째 기판으로는 규칙적인 배열을 갖는 micro 크기의 패턴을 형성하였다. 마지막으로는 불규칙한 배열을 갖는 nano 크기와 micro 크기가 혼재 된 패턴을 형성하여 투과도 향상과 동시에 빛의 산란을 증가시키고자 하였다. 후에 이 세가지 종류를 기판으로 사용하여 a-Si:H 기반의 박막 태양전지를 제작하였다. 먼저 제작한 박막 태양전지용 기판의 광학적 전기적 특성을 분석하였다. 유리 기판 위에 형성한 패턴에 의한 roughness 변화를 확인하기 위해 atomic force microscopy (AFM)를 이용하여 시편의 표면을 측정하였다. 또한 제작한 유리 기판 위에 투명 전극층을 형성 후, 이로 인한 전기적 특성의 변화를 확인하기 위해 hall measurement system을 이용하여 sheet resistance, carrier mobility, carrier concentration 등의 특성을 측정하였다. 또한, UV-visible photospectrometer 장비를 이용하여 각 공정마다 시편의 광학적 특성(투과도, 반사도, 산란도, 흡수도 등)을 측정하였고, 최종적으로 제작한 박막 태양전지의 I-V 특성과 외부양자효율을 측정하여 태양전지의 효율 변화를 확인하였다. 그 결과 일반적인 유리에 기판에 제작된 a-Si:H 기반의 박막 태양전지에 비해, ZnO nanoparticles이 분산 된 imprinting resin을 spin-coating 하여 점진적인 굴절률 변화를 준 것만으로도 약 12%의 태양전지 효율이 증가하였다. 또한, micro 크기의 패턴과 nano-micro 크기가 혼재된 패턴을 형성한 경우 일반적인 유리를 사용한 경우에 비해 각각 27%, 36%까지 효율이 증가함을 확인하였다.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.225-230
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• 2006

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a novel method of fabricating nanometer scale patterns. It is a simple process with low cost, high throughput and resolution. NIL creates patterns by mechanical deformation of an imprint resist and physical contact process. The imprint resist is typically a monomer or polymer formulation that is cured by heat or UV light during the imprinting process. Stiction between the resist and the stamp is resulted from this physical contact process. Stiction issue is more important in the stamps including narrow pattern size and wide area. Therefore, the antistiction layer coating is very effective to prevent this problem and ensure successful NIL. In this paper, an antistiction layer was deposited and characterized by PECVD (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) method for metal stamps. Deposition rates of an antistiction layer on Si and Ni substrates were in proportion to deposited time and 3.4 nm/min and 2.5 nm/min, respectively. A 50 nm thick antistiction layer showed 90% relative transmittance at 365 nm wavelength. Contact angle result showed good hydrophobicity over 105 degree. $CF_2$ and $CF_3$ peaks were founded in ATR-FTIR analysis. The thicknesses and the contact angle of a 50 nm thick antistiction film were slightly changed during chemical resistance test using acetone and sulfuric acid. To evaluate the deposited antistiction layer, a 50 nm thick film was coated on a stainless steel stamp made by wet etching process. A PMMA substrate was successfully imprinting without pattern degradations by the stainless steel stamp with an antistiction layer. The test result shows that antistiction layer coating is very effective for NIL.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2023

In conventional liquid crystal display(LCD) manufacturing process, Indium Tin Oxide(ITO) as transparent electrode and rubbing process of polyimide as alignment layer are essential process to apply electric field and align liquid crystal molecules. However, there are some limits that deposition of ITO requires high vacuum state, and rubbing process might damage the device with tribolectric discharge. In this paper, we made nanocomposite with PEDOT:PSS and MWNT to replace ITO and constructed alignment layer by nano imprint lithography with nano wrinkle pattern, to replace rubbing process. These replacement made that only one PEDOT:PSS/MWNT film can function as two layers of ITO and polyimide alignment layer, which means simplification of process. Transferred nano wrinkle patterns functioned well as alignment layer, and we found out lowered threshold voltage and shortened response time as MWNT content increase, which is related to increment of electric conductivity of the film. Through this study, it may able to contribute to process simplification, reducing process cost, and suggesting a solution to disadvantage of rubbing process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.167-170
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• 2005

The two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) diamond-like carbon (DLC) stamps for ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) were fabricated using two kinds of methods, which were a DLC coating process followed by the focused ion beam (FIB) lithography and the two-photon polymerization (TPP) patterning followed by nano-scale thick DLC coating. We fabricated 70 nm deep lines with a width of 100 nm and 70 nm deep lines with a width of 150 nm on 100 nm thick DLC layers coated on quartz substrates using the FIB lithography. 200 nm wide lines, 3D rings with a diameter of $1.35\;{\mu}m$ and a height of $1.97\;{\mu}m$, and a 3D cone with a bottom diameter of $2.88\;{\mu}m$ and a height of $1.97\;{\mu}m$ were successfully fabricated using the TPP patterning and DLC coating process. The wafers were successfully printed on an UV-NIL using the DLC stamp. We could see the excellent correlation between the dimensions of features of stamp and the corresponding imprinted features.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.91-96
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• 2016

In this study, effects of demolding temperature (DT) on the formability and optical properties were evaluated in order to optimize thermal nanoimprint lithography for anti-reflective film. Characterization on optical property showed that optical performance was gradually enhanced as the DT increased up to $70^{\circ}C$ while the transmittance and the reflectance was degraded as the DT increased further to $100^{\circ}C$. In addition, similar behavior was observed from formability analysis. It was contributed to the formation of free volume and viscose flow. Therefore, it was concluded that the formability and optical property are highly influenced by the formation of free volume and viscous flow of polymer depending on the DT.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1838-1843
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• 2014

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) fabrication process is regarded as the main alternative to existing expensive photo-lithography in areas such as micro- and nano-electronics including optical components and sensors, as well as the solar cell and display device industries. Functional patterns, including anti-reflective moth-eye pattern, photonic crystal pattern, fabricated by NIL can improve the overall efficiency of such devices. To successfully imprint a nano-sized pattern, the process conditions such as temperature, pressure, and time should be appropriately selected. In this paper, a cavity-filling process of the moth-eye pattern during the thermal-NIL within the temperature range, where the polymer resist shows the viscoelastic behaviors with consideration of stress relaxation effect of the polymer, were investigated with three-dimensional finite element analysis. The effects of initial thickness of polymer resist and imprinting pressure on cavity-filling process has been discussed. From the analysis results it was found that the cavity filling can be completed within 100 s, under the pressure of more than 4 MPa.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 2005

In the UV-NIL process using an elementwise patterned stamp (EPS), which includes channels formed to separate each element with patterns, low-viscosity resin droplets with a nano-liter volume are dispensed on all elements of the EPS. Following pressing of the EPS, the EPS is illuminated with UV-light to cure the resin; and then the EPS is separated from several thin patterned elements on a wafer. Experiments on UV-NIL were performed on an EVG620-NIL. 50 - 100nm features of the EPS with 3m channels were successfully transferred to 4 in. wafers. Especially, the wafer deformation during imprint was analyzed using the finite element method (FEM) in order to study the effect of the wafer deformation on the UV-NIL using EPS.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.182-189
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• 2006

In this paper, the adhesion characteristics between a fused silica without or with an anti-sticking layer and a thermoplastic polymer film used in thermal NIL were investigated experimentally in order to identify the release performance of the anti-sticking layer. The anti-sticking layers were derived from fluoroalkylsilanes, (1H, 1 H, 2H, 2H-perfluorooctyl)trichlorosilane ($F_{13}-OTS$) and (3, 3, 3-trifluoropropyl)trichlorosilane (FPTS), and coated on the silica surface in vapor phase. The commercial polymers, mr-I 7020 and 8020 (micro resist technology, GmbH), for thermal NIL were spin-coated on Si substrate with a rectangular island which was fabricated by conventional microfabrication process to achieve small contact area and easy alignment of flat contact sur- faces. Experimental conditions were similar to the process conditions of thermal NIL. When the polymer film on the island was separated from the silica surface after imprint process, the adhesion force between the silica surface and the polymer film was measured and the surfaces of the silica and the polymer film after the separation were observed. As a result, the anti-sticking layers remarkably reduced the adhesion force and the surface damage of polymer film and the chain length of silane affects the adhesion characteristics. The anti-sticking layers derived from FPTS and $F_{13}-OTS$ reduced the adhesion force per unit area to 38% and 16% of the silica sur-faces without an anti-sticking layer, respectively. The anti-sticking layer derived from $F_{13}-OTS$ was more effective to reduce the adhesion, while both of the anti-sticking layers prevented the surface damages of the polymer film. Finally, it is also found that the adhesion characteristics of mr-I 7020 and mr-I 8020 polymer films were similar with each other.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.333-338
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• 2003

Nano-imprint lithography(NIL) is a polymer embossing technique, capable of transferring nano-scale patterns onto a thin film of thermoplastics such as polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) using this parallel process. Feature size down 10 nm have been demonstrated. In NIL, the pattern is formed by displacing polymer material, which can be squeeze flow of a viscous liquid. Due to the size of the pattern, a thorough understood of the process through experiments may be very different. Therefore we nead to resort to numerical simulation on the embossing process. Generally, there are two ways of numerical simulation on nano-scale flow, namely top-down and bottom-up approach. Top-down approach is a way to simulate the flow assuming that polymer is a continuum. On the contrary, in the bottom-up approach, simulation is peformed using molecular dynamics(MD). However, as latter method is not feasible yet. we chose the top-down approach. For the numerical analysis, two dimensional moving grid was used since the moving grid can predict the flow front. Effects of surface tension as well as the slip at the boundary were also considered.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.104.2-104.2
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• 2011

세계적으로 환경오염이 심각해짐에 따라 친환경적으로 에너지를 생산하는 기술이 주목받고 있다. 그 중에서도 태양광을 이용하여 전력을 생산하는 태양광 태양전지의 경우 원리가 간단하고 에너지원의 수급이 용이하다는 장점으로 인하여 많은 연구가 진행되고 있다. 그러나 태양광 태양전지의 경우, 태양전지 기판에서의 반사로 인하여 발전 효율이 낮아는 문제점이 있다. 이를 해결하기 위해 텍스처링 공정을 통해 태양전지 기판에서의 반사를 줄이고 태양전지의 효율을 증가시키는 방법이 이용되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 나노 돌기를 가진 저반사 패턴을 이용하여 태양전지용 실리콘 기판을 제작함으로써, 태양전지 기판에서의 반사를 줄이고자 하였다. 나노 돌기를 가진 저반사 패턴이 형성 된 태양전지용 실리콘 기판을 제작하기 위해 ICP 장비를 이용한 $Cl_2$ 플라즈마 식각공정을 진행하였다. 먼저 Au agglomeration 기술을 이용하여 Au nano particle을 실리콘 기판 위에 형성 후, 이를 식각 마스크로 이용하여 ICP 식각을 진행하였다. 이어서 나노 돌기가 형성 된 실리콘 기판 위에 $Cl_2$ 플라즈마에 내식각성이 우수한 레지스트를 이용하여, 나노 임프린트 리소그래피 기술을 통해 저반사 패턴을 형성하였다. 이 방법으로 형성 된 저반사 패턴을 식각 마스크로 사용하여 앞의 공정과 동일한 조건으로 실리콘 기판을 식각하였다. 최종적으로 agglomerated Au particle과 $Cl_2$ 플라즈마에 내식각성이 우수한 레지스트를 이용하여 나노 돌기를 가진 저반사 패턴이 형성된 실리콘 기판을 제작하였다.