Gun-Wook Yoon

High Throughput Ultralong (20 cm) Nanowire Fabrication Using a Wafer-Scale Nanograting Template

Nanowires are being actively explored as promising nanostructured materials for high performance flexible electronics, biochemical sensors, photonic applications, solar cells, and secondary batteries. In particular, ultralong (centimeter-long) nanowires are highly attractive from the perspective of electronic performance, device throughput (or productivity), and the possibility of novel applications. However, most previous works on ultralong nanowires have issues related to limited length, productivity, difficult alignment, and deploying onto the planar substrate complying with well-matured device fabrication technologies. Here, we demonstrate a highly ordered ultralong (up to 20 cm) nanowire array, with a diameter of 50 nm (aspect ratio of up to 4,000,000:1), in an unprecedented large (8 in.) scale (2,000,000 strands on a wafer). We first devised a perfectly connected ultralong nanograting master template on the whole area of an 8 in. substrate using a top-down approach, with a density equivalent to that achieved with e-beam lithography (100 nm). Using this large-area, ultralong, high-density nanograting template, we developed a fast and effective method for fabricating up to 20 cm long nanowire arrays on a plastic substrate, composed of metal, dielectric, oxide, and ferroelectric materials. As a suggestion of practical application, a prototype of a large-area aluminum wire grid polarizer was demonstrated.

Fabrication of a uniform microlens array over a large area using self-aligned diffuser lithography (SADL)

We describe a simple and effective method to fabricate a uniform plastic microlens array (MLA) with high fill-factor over a large area utilizing self-aligned diffuser lithography (SADL). In order to make an intimate contact between the photomask and the positive photoresist during 3D diffuser lithography, which is crucial for obtaining a uniform MLA mold over a large area, we fabricated a self-aligned metal mask directly on top of the positive photoresist, eliminating any air gap between the metal mask and the underlying photoresist. After replication of the developed concave MLA mold onto the poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), a standard deviation of sag (height) of the MLA was observed by laser scanning confocal lithography. The standard deviation, which indicates uniformity, was reduced by as much as a factor of 6 by applying SADL compared with that obtained from conventional diffuser lithography. Using this method, we fabricated a 7 inch MLA sheet with excellent uniformity. The proposed method can be extensively applied for fabrication of large-size MLA sheets with plastic materials thanks to its simplicity and versatility.

Fabrication of a membrane filter with controlled pore shape and its application to cell separation and strong single cell trapping

A porous membrane filter is one of the key components for sample preparation in lab-on-a-chip applications. However, most of the membranes reported to date have only been used for size-based separation since it is difficult to provide functionality to the membrane or improve the performance of the membrane. In this work, as a method to functionalize the membrane filter, controlling the shape of the membrane pores is suggested, and a convenient and mass-producible fabrication method is provided. With the proposed method, membrane filters with round, conical and funnel shape pores were successfully fabricated, and we demonstrated that the sidewall slope of the conical shape pores could be precisely controlled. To verify that the membrane filter can be functionalized by controlled pore shape, we investigated filtration and trapping performance of the membrane filter with conical shape pores. In a filtration test of 1000 cancer cells (MCF-7, a breast cancer cell line) spiked in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution, 77% of the total cancer cells were retained on the membrane, and each cell from among 99.3% of the retained cells was automatically isolated in a single conical pore during the filtration process. Thanks to its engineered pore shape, trapping ability of the membrane with conical pores is dramatically improved. Microparticles trapped in the conical pores maintain their locations without any losses even at a more than 30 times faster external flow rate com-pared with those mounted on conventional cylindrical pores. Also, 78% of the cells trapped in the conical pores withstand an external flow of over 300 μl min−1 whereas only 18% of the cells trapped in the cylindrical pores remain on the membrane after 120 μl min−1 of an external flow is applied.

Novel buried inverse-trapezoidal micropattern for dual-sided light extracting backlight unit

We devised a novel buried inverse-trapezoidal (BIT) micropattern that can enable light extracting to both front and back sides of the backlight unit (BLU). The proposed BLU comprised of only a single-sheet light-guide plate (LGP) having the BIT micropatterns only on the top surface of the LGP. The proposed BLU shows normal directional light emitting characteristics to both the front and back sides of the LGP and successfully acts as a planer light source for a dual-sided LCD. The proposed BLU has the potential to dramatically reduce the thickness, weight and cost of the dual-sided LCD thanks to its single-sheet nature.