Heetak Han

Bio-Inspired Extreme Wetting Surfaces for Biomedical Applications

Biological creatures with unique surface wettability have long served as a source of inspiration for scientists and engineers. More specifically, materials exhibiting extreme wetting properties, such as superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces, have attracted considerable attention because of their potential use in various applications, such as self-cleaning fabrics, anti-fog windows, anti-corrosive coatings, drag-reduction systems, and efficient water transportation. In particular, the engineering of surface wettability by manipulating chemical properties and structure opens emerging biomedical applications ranging from high-throughput cell culture platforms to biomedical devices. This review describes design and fabrication methods for artificial extreme wetting surfaces. Next, we introduce some of the newer and emerging biomedical applications using extreme wetting surfaces. Current challenges and future prospects of the surfaces for potential biomedical applications are also addressed.

Graphene as an atomically thin barrier to Cu diffusion into Si

The evolution of copper-based interconnects requires the realization of an ultrathin diffusion barrier layer between the Cu interconnect and insulating layers. The present work reports the use of atomically thin layer graphene as a diffusion barrier to Cu metallization. The diffusion barrier performance is investigated by varying the grain size and thickness of the graphene layer; single-layer graphene of average grain size 2 ± 1 μm (denoted small-grain SLG), single-layer graphene of average grain size 10 ± 2 μm (denoted large-grain SLG), and multi-layer graphene (MLG) of thickness 5-10 nm. The thermal stability of these barriers is investigated after annealing Cu/small-grain SLG/Si, Cu/large-grain SLG/Si, and Cu/MLG/Si stacks at different temperatures ranging from 500 to 900 °C. X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy analyses confirm that the small-grain SLG barrier is stable after annealing up to 700 °C and that the large-grain SLG and MLG barriers are stable after annealing at 900 °C for 30 min under a mixed Ar and H2 gas atmosphere. The time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) test is used to evaluate graphene as a Cu diffusion barrier under real device operating conditions, revealing that both large-grain SLG and MLG have excellent barrier performance, while small-grain SLG fails quickly. Notably, the large-grain SLG acts as a better diffusion barrier than the thicker MLG in the TDDB test, indicating that the grain boundary density of a graphene diffusion barrier is more important than its thickness. The near-zero-thickness SLG serves as a promising Cu diffusion barrier for advanced metallization.

Gas-Driven Ultrafast Reversible Switching of Super-hydrophobic Adhesion on Palladium-Coated Silicon Nanowires

A gas-driven ultrafast adhesion switching of water droplets on palladium-coated Si nanowire arrays is demonstrated. By regulating the gas-ambient between the atmosphere and H2 , the super-hydrophobic adhesion is repeatedly switched between water-repellent and water-adhesive. The capability of modulating the super-hydrophobic adhesion on a super-hydrophobic surface with a non-contact mode could be applicable to novel functional lab-on-a-chip platforms.

Tin-Cobalt Alloy Plating in a Pyrophosphate Bath

We examined bath composition, plating condition and plating process of tin-cobalt alloy deposits substituting chromium plating. It has been also investigated and reviewed surface characteristics, corrosion resistance, impurity influence, and abrasion utilizing pilot plant after investigating reviewing cathodic polarization curve, corrosion resistance and SEM through Hull-cell and beaker test. As a result, it was found that basic bath composition of tin-cobalt alloy plating is SnCl 2 .2H 2 O (0.03M), COSO 4 .7H 2 O (0.05M), K 4 P 2 O 7 (0.7M). It has been also found that surface of plating is best when plating condition is current density (lA/dm2), solution temperature (50°C), pH8 with current efficiency of 70∼73% and plating rate of 0.2μm/min. Tin-cobalt alloy plating is at least equal to, or better than chromium plating in adhesion and tarnish test, while chromium plating is better than tin-cobalt alloy plating in corrosion resistance and abrasion test.

Single-Droplet Multiplex Bioassay on a Robust and Stretchable Extreme Wetting Substrate through Vacuum-Based Droplet Manipulation

Herein, a droplet manipulation system with a superamphiphobic (SPO)-superamphiphilic (SPI) patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate is developed for a multiplex bioassay from single-droplet samples. The SPO substrate is fabricated by sequential spraying of adhesive and fluorinated silica nanoparticles onto a PDMS substrate. It is subsequently subjected to oxygen plasma with a patterned mask to form SPI patterns. The SPO layer exhibits extreme liquid repellency with a high contact angle (>150°) toward low surface tension and viscous biofluidic droplets (e.g., ethylene glycol, blood, dimethyl sulfoxide, and alginate hydrogel). In contrast, the SPI exhibits liquid adhesion with a near zero contact angle. Using the droplet manipulation system, various liquid droplets can be precisely manipulated and dispensed onto the predefined SPI patterns on the SPO PDMS substrate. This system enables a multiplex colorimetric bioassay, capable of detecting multiple analytes, including glucose, uric acid, and lactate, from a single sample droplet. In addition, the detection of glucose concentrations in a plasma droplet of diabetic and healthy mice are performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system for efficient clinical diagnostic applications.

Stimuli-responsive and on-chip nanomembrane micro-rolls for enhanced macroscopic visual hydrogen detection

Palladium nanomembranes roll into microscale actuators and their active array responses upon hydrogen stimuli within seconds. Nanomembrane rolling offers advanced three-dimensional (3D) mesostructures in electronics, optics, and biomedical applications. We demonstrate a high-density and on-chip array of rolled-up nanomembrane actuators with stimuli-responsive function based on the volume expansion of palladium in hydrogen milieu. The uniform stimuli-responsive behavior of high-density nanomembrane rolls leads to huge macroscopic visual detection with more than 50% transmittance change under optimization of micropattern design. The reversible shape changing between rolled and flat (unrolled) statuses can be well explained on the basis of the elastic mechanical model. The strain change in the palladium layer during hydrogen absorption and desorption produces a marked change in the diameter of nanomembrane rolls. We found that a functional palladium layer established an external compressive strain after hydrogen stimuli and thus also reduced the rolls’ diameters. The large area of the nanomembrane roll array performs excellent nonelectrical hydrogen detection, with response and recovery speeds within seconds. Our work suggests a new strategy to integrate high-density 3D mesoscale architectures into functional devices and systems.

Highly Sensitive Multifilament Fiber Strain Sensors with Ultrabroad Sensing Range for Textile Electronics

Highly stretchable fiber strain sensors are one of the most important components for various applications in wearable electronics, electronic textiles, and biomedical electronics. Herein, we present a facile approach for fabricating highly stretchable and sensitive fiber strain sensors by embedding Ag nanoparticles into a stretchable fiber with a multifilament structure. The multifilament structure and Ag-rich shells of the fiber strain sensor enable the sensor to simultaneously achieve both a high sensitivity and largely wide sensing range despite its simple fabrication process and components. The fiber strain sensor simultaneously exhibits ultrahigh gauge factors (∼9.3 × 105 and ∼659 in the first stretching and subsequent stretching, respectively), a very broad strain-sensing range (450 and 200% for the first and subsequent stretching, respectively), and high durability for more than 10 000 stretching cycles. The fiber strain sensors can also be readily integrated into a glove to control a hand robot and effectively applied to monitor the large volume expansion of a balloon and a pig bladder for an artificial bladder system, thereby demonstrating the potential of the fiber strain sensors as candidates for electronic textiles, wearable electronics, and biomedical engineering.

Highly Conductive Fiber with Waterproof and Self-Cleaning Properties for Textile Electronics

Major concerns in the development of wearable textile electronics are exposure to moisture and contamination. The exposure can cause electrical breakdown of the device and its interconnections, and thus continuous efforts have been made to fabricate textile electronics which are free from moisture and pollution. Herein, we developed a highly conductive and waterproof fiber with excellent electrical conductivity (0.11 Ω/cm) and mechanical stability for advanced interconnector components in wearable textile electronics. The fabrication process of the highly conductive fiber involves coating of a commercial Kevlar fiber with Ag nanoparticle-poly(styrene- block-butadiene- block-styrene) polymer composites. The fabricated fiber then gets treated with self-assembled monolayer (SAM)-forming reagents, which yields waterproof and self-cleaning properties. To find optimal SAM-forming reagents, four different kinds of reagents involving 1-decane thiol (DT), 1 H,1 H,2 H,2 H-perfluorohexanethiol, 1 H,1 H,2 H,2 H-perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane, 1 H,1 H,2 H,2 H-perfluodecanethiol (PFDT) were compared in terms of their thiol group and carbon chain lengths. Among the SAM-forming reagents, the PFDT-treated conductive fiber showed superior waterproof and self-cleaning property, as well as great sustainability in the water with varying pH because of nanoscale roughness and low surface energy. In addition, the functionality of the conductive fiber was tested under mechanical compression via repeated washing and folding processes. The developed conductive fiber with waterproof and self-cleaning property has promising applications in the interconnector operated under water and textile electronics.

Ultrafast optical-pump terahertz-probe spectroscopy of individual silicon nanowires

We present terahertz carrier dynamics in individual silicon nanowires by ultrafast optical-pump and terahertz-probe spectroscopy. Density-dependent study reveals that the surface traps play a major role in the carrier dynamics, in which the conductivity changes with the terahertz polarization parallel to nanowire axis are extracted.