• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.15-26
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• 1998

The role of the Engineer in the era of nano-technology is explored, a trend in manufacture which is expected to yield a ＄20-30 billion per annum business throughout the world by the year 2020. The engineers who will be working in this subject will be required to have broadly based experience, over a range of traditional disciplines, such as physics. electronics, software engineering, control and mechanical engineering. As well as having an appreciation of other disciplines such as air conditioning, vibration analysis and its minimisation, the selection of materials for maximum stability and minimal thermal distortion as well as an understanding of ultra precision design and nano tribology. In other words the engineer who is to be successful in this new and emerging field, will have to be broader based than engineers of the past, where it was traditional to break up the elements of a discipline to smaller subsets. But as nano-technology advances and the subject brings about the evolution of nanotronics to provide a successful solution to emerging problems, it will be essential for a breed of engineers to develop who can consider the subject in a holistic manner. This paper therefore considers the emergence of nano-technology, predicts the subsets of the development and places them in context of the new engineer which will be required in increasing numbers. The paper summarises the skills of the proposed nanotronics engineer and provides a basis for their training and development.

• KSTLE International Journal
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• v.10 no.1_2
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• pp.1-5
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• 2009

This paper reports an investigation on nanotribological properties of silicon nanochannels coated by a diamond-like carbon (DLC) film. The nanochannels were fabricated on Si (100) wafers by using photolithography and reactive ion etching (RIE) techniques. The channeled surfaces (Si channels) were then further modified by coating thin DLC film. Water contact angle of the modified and unmodified Si surfaces was examined by an anglemeter using the sessile-drop method. Nanotribological properties, namely friction and adhesion forces, of the Si channels coated with DLC (DLC-coated Si channels) were investigated in comparison with those of the flat Si, DLC-coated flat Si (flat DLC), and Si channels, using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Results showed that the DLC-coated Si channels greatly increased hydrophobicity of silicon surfaces. The DLC coating and Si channels themselves individually reduced adhesion and friction forces of the flat Si. Further, the DLC-coated Si channels exhibited the lowest values of these forces, owing to the combined effect of reduced contact area through the channeling and low surface energy of the DLC. This combined modification could prove a promising method for tribological applications at small scales.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.289-296
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• 2012

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used for imaging surfaces and measuring surface forces at the nano-scale. Force calibration is important for the quantitative measurement of forces at the nano-scale using AFM. Normal force calibration is relatively straightforward, whereas the lateral force calibration is more complicated since the lateral stiffness of the cantilever is often comparable to the contact stiffness. In this work, the lateral force calibrations of the rectangular cantilever were performed using torsional Sader's method, thermal noise method, and wedge calibration method. The lateral optical lever sensitivity for the thermal noise method was determined from the friction loop under various normal forces as well. Experimental results showed that the discrepancies among the results of the different methods were as large as 30% due to the effect of the contact stiffness on the lateral force calibration of the cantilever used in this work. After correction for the effect of contact stiffness, all the calibration results agreed with each other, within experimental uncertainties.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.275-281
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• 2017

In this work, we have fabricated anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) with ordered nanoscale porosity through an anodization process. We deposited gold and nano-organic thin films on the porous AAO surface to protect its structure and reduce friction. We investigated the tribological characteristics of the porous AAO with respect to the protective surface coatings using tribometers. While investigating the frictional characteristics of the samples by applying normal forces of the order of micro-Newton, we observed that AAO without a protective coating exhibits the highest friction coefficient. In the presence of protective surface coatings, the friction coefficient decreases significantly. We applied normal forces of the order of milli-Newton during the tribotests to investigate the wear characteristics of AAO, and observed that AAO without protective surface coatings experiences severe damage due to the brittle nature of the oxide layer. We observed the presence of several pieces of fractured particles in the wear track; these fractured particles lead to an increase in the friction. However, by using surface coatings such as gold thin films and nano-organic thin films, we confirmed that the thin films with nanoscale thickness protect the AAO surface without exhibiting significant wear tracks and maintain a stable friction coefficient for the duration of the tribotests.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2019

We investigated the application of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) coatings to fabricate a glass lens manufactured using a glass molding process (GMP). In this work, ta-C coatings with different thickness (50, 100, 150 and 200 nm) were deposited on a tungsten carbide (WC-Co) mold using the X-bend filter of a filtered cathode vacuum arc. The effects of thickness on mechanical and tribological properties of the coating were studied. These ta-C coatings were characterized by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, nano-indentation measurements, Raman spectrometry, Rockwell-C tests, scratch tests and ball on disc tribometer tests. The nano-indentation measurements showed that hardness increased with an increase in coating thickness. In addition, the G-peak position in the Raman spectra analysis was right shifted from 1520 to $1586cm^{-1}$, indicating that the $sp^3$ content increased with increasing thickness of ta-C coatings. The scratch test showed that, compared to other coatings, the 100-nm-thick ta-C coating displayed excellent adhesion strength without delamination. The friction test was carried out in a nitrogen environment using a ball-on-disk tribometer. The 100-nm-thick ta-C coating showed a low friction coefficient of 0.078. When this coating was applied to a GMP, the life time, i.e., shot counts, dramatically increased up to 2,500 counts, in comparison with Ir-Re coating.

• Nano
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.1850144.1-1850144.13
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• 2018

A nano-$MoS_2$/montmorillonite K-10 (K10) composite was prepared and characterized. The composite contains two types of 2H-$MoS_2$ nanoparticles. One is the hollow spherical $MoS_2$ with a size range of 75 nm, and the other is the spherical nano cluster of $MoS_2$ with a size range of 30 nm. The two kinds of nano-$MoS_2$ were formed via assembly of numerous $MoS_2$ nano-platelets with a size of ~10 nm. A tribological comparison was then made among nano-$MoS_2$/K10, K10, nano-$MoS_2$ and a mechanical mixture of K10 and nano-$MoS_2$. K10 reduced the wear but slightly increased the friction. Nano-$MoS_2$ remarkably reduced both friction and wear. The mechanical mixture demonstrated better wear resistance than nano-$MoS_2$, indicating a synergistic anti-wear effect of nano-$MoS_2$ and K10. The synergistic effect was reinforced using nano-$MoS_2$/K10 instead of the mechanical mixture. A part of the $MoS_2$ in the contact region always lubricated the friction pair, and the rest formed a tribofilm. K10 segregated the friction pair to alleviate the ablation wear but magnified the abrasive wear. S-$MoS_2$ protects K10 and they together function as both a lubricant and an isolating agent to reduce the ablation and abrasive wear.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.151-163
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• 2021

Since the discovery of single-layer graphene, exploiting graphene's excellent physical/chemical properties in tribology systems has been a topic of interest in academia over the last few decades. There is no doubt that understanding the underlying friction mechanism of graphite should precede this. Even now, new properties of graphene are being reported in academia, and based on this, studies exploring the origins of graphene's surface properties and friction characteristics in a wide range of scales are also being performed. From the perspective of lubrication engineering, graphene research can be largely divided into studies that 1) reveal its basic friction mechanism at the nanoscale and 2) explore its application in macroscale sliding systems. At the nanoscale, the basic friction mechanism of graphene is mainly due to its atomic thickness. In this paper, the various research on the nanoscale friction and surface characteristics of graphene is reviewed. Graphene surface properties, such as wettability and surface energy and the basic friction mechanisms of graphene attributed to adhesion, electronphonon scattering, bending stiffness, and the underlying substrate, are summarized. Further, we provide the research outcomes on the superlubricity of graphene. Finally, the potential application and challenges of the superlubricity of graphene are highlighted. Through this, we intend to provide summarized information to researchers interested in the tribological properties of graphene and help set the direction of future research.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.1043-1047
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• 2003

With the advancement of micro-systems and nanotechnology, the need for ultra-precision fabrication techniques has been steadily increasing. In this paper, a novel nano-structure fabrication process that is based on the fundamental understanding of nano-scale tribological interaction is introduced. The process, which is called Mechano-Chemical Scanning Probe Lithography (MC-SPL), has two steps, namely, mechanical scribing for the removal of a resist layer and selective chemical etching on the scribed regions. Organic monolayers are used as a resist material, since it is essential for the resist to be as thin as possible in order to fabricate more precise patterns and surface structures. The results show that high resolution patterns with sub-micrometer scale width can be fabricated on both silicon and various metal surfaces by using this technique.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2000.06a
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• pp.1589-1595
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• 2000

레이저 텍스쳐와 미케니칼 텍스쳐 컴퓨터 하드디스크의 마찰과 마코 매카니즘이 Contact Start/Stop test 실행후의 특성들에 대해 연구되었다. 다양한 분석적이고 기계적인 테스트 기술들이 이용되었다. 형상, 조도, 화학적 조성, 기계적 성질, CSS 로부터 기인된 코팅의 마찰특성들에 대해 그 변화들을 조사하였다. 즉, AFM(Atomic Force Microscopy), Nano-Indentation, Nano-Scratch, TOF-SIMS(Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy), AES(Auger Electronic Spectroscopy)등이 이 연구에 적용되었다. 레이저 텍스쳐 범프의 표면조도와 미케니칼 텍스쳐 지역의 표면조도는 각각 대략적으로 4nm 와 7nm 감소되었다. 탄성계수와 경도값은 CSS test후에 증가하였고 가장 바깥쪽의 코팅층의 변형강화가 생겨났다. 자성층과 Ni-P 층 사이에 점착성의 문제가 확인되었다. TOF-SIMS 분석은 C 와 $C_2F_5$의 세기에 있어서 감소를 드러냈고 이것은 코팅 표면에 윤활제 요소의 마모를 확실시 할수 있는 결과로 나타났다.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.75-81
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• 2016

Future electronics such as electronic paper and foldable cellphone are required to be flexible and transparent and should have a high performance. In order to fabricate the flexible electronics using flexibility transfer process, techniques for transferring various devices from rigid substrate onto flexible substrate by elastomeric stamp, have been developed. Adhesion between the elastomeric stamp and various devices is crucial for successful transfer process. The adhesion can be controlled by the thickness of the stamp, separation velocity, contact load, and stamp surface treatment. In this study, we fabricated the bump shape stamp consisting of a UV-curable polymer and investigated the effects of curing condition, separation velocity, and contact load on the adhesion characteristics of bumps. The bumps with hemispherical shape were fabricated using a dispensing process, which is one of the ink-jet printing techniques. Curing conditions of the bumps were controlled by the amount of UV irradiation energy. The adhesion characteristics of bumps are evaluated by adhesion test. The results show that the pull-off forces of bumps were increased and decreased as UV irradiation energy increased. For UV irradiation energies of 300 and 500 mJ/cm², the pull-off forces were increased as the separation velocity increased. The pull-off forces also increased with the increase of contact load. In the case of UV irradiation energy above 600 mJ/cm², however, the pull-off forces were not changed. Therefore, we believe that the bump shape stamp can be applied to roll-based transfer process and selective transfer process as an elastomeric stamp.