Jung-mok Bae

Improvement in the breakdown properties of electrowetting using polyelectrolyte ionic solution.

We report the improvement in the breakdown properties of electrowetting using a mixture of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) polyelectrolyte and a surfactant (Tween 80, TW80). Onset of breakdown was initially determined via visual observation and further verified by investigating impedance phase shift. Breakdown characteristics of the large-molecule ionic solution were compared with those of conventional electrolytes (Na(2)SO(4)) that produce small molecules. Experiments with various conductivities and hydrophobic coatings on a thin silicon nitride dielectric layer (∼500 Å) showed that the breakdown voltage of the PAA-TW80 system was at least two times higher than that of the Na(2)SO(4)-TW80 system. Our results demonstrate that defects in the dielectric and hydrophobic layers are less vulnerable to larger ionic molecules.

Measurement of the optical characteristics of electrowetting prism array for three-dimensional display

Recently liquid-based optical devices are emerging as attractive components in three-dimensional (3D) display for its compact structure and fast response time. Among them an electrowetting prism array is one of the promising 3D devices. It steers a beam, which enables to provide corresponding perspectives to observer. For high quality autostereoscopic 3D displays the important factors are the beam steering angle and the beam profile, the optical characteristics. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the optical characteristics of the liquid prism and show experimental results on our prototype electrowetting prism array, which consists of prisms with 200um by 200um size. A modified 4-f system is adopted for the proposed method. It provides two kinds of information of the optical characteristics of the liquid prism at the image plane and at the Fourier plane. First, the proposed measurement setup magnifies the image of the liquid micro prism array so that we can observe the status of the each prism array directly with bare eye and align a mask easily for selecting a prism to be examined at the image plane. Secondly, the steering angle can be calculated by measuring the displacement of the beam at the Fourier plane, where the angular profiles that have important information on the oilwater interface is observed precisely. The principle of the proposed method will be explained, and the measured optical characteristics from experimental results on the liquid prism we fabricated will be provided, which proves the validity of the measurement method.

Arrayed beam steering device for advanced 3D displays

An arrayed beam steering device enables much simplified system architectures for high quality multiview 3D displays by adapting time multiplexing and eye tracking scheme. An array device consisting of microscale liquid prisms is presented, where the prism surface between two immiscible liquids is electrically controlled to steer light beams by the principle of electrowetting. An array prototype with 280×280μm pixels was fabricated and demonstrated of its full optical performances. The maximum tilting angle of each prism was measured to be 22.5° in average, with a tracking resolution of less than 0.04°. In this paper, we report a design and fabrication of eletrowetting based prism array, opto-fluidic simulations, optical characterizations, as well as applications to achieve low fatigue 3D displays.

Interfacial waves generated by electrowetting-driven contact line motion

The contact angle of a liquid-fluid interface can be effectively modulated by the electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) technology. Rapid movement of the contact line can be achieved by swift changes of voltage at the electrodes, which can give rise to interfacial waves under the strong influence of surface tension. Here we experimentally demonstrate EWOD-driven interfacial waves of overlapping liquids and compare their wavelength and decay length with the theoretical results obtained by a perturbation analysis. Our theory also allows us to predict the temporal evolution of the interfacial profiles in either rectangular or cylindrical containers, as driven by slipping contact lines. This work builds a theoretical framework to understand and predict the dynamics of capillary waves of a liquid-liquid interface driven by EWOD, which has practical implications on optofluidic devices used to guide light.

Development of micro variable optics array

This research is on the development of a micro variable optics array which employs electrowetting as the working principle. The single pixel of the array has four separated electrodes and each of them is controlled independently giving the device multi-degree of freedom. The separated electrodes are fabricated using a thick photoresist and electroplating. Several formulas showing the relation among the radius of curvature, the prism angle, and electrowetting parameters are provided. The prism angles are measured to be ±30° and compared to the calculated values. The measurement of the radius of curvature is also presented showing that the various radiuses of curvature are achievable from concave to convex.

A miniaturized near infrared spectrometer for non-invasive sensing of bio-markers as a wearable healthcare solution

A novel miniaturized near-infrared spectrometer readily mountable to wearable devices for continuous monitoring of individual’s key bio-markers was proposed. Spectrum is measured by sequential illuminations with LED’s, having independent spectrum profiles and a continuous detection of light radiations from the skin tissue with a single cell PD. Based on Tikhonov regularization with singular value decomposition, a spectrum resolution less than 10nm was reconstructed based on experimentally measured LED profiles. A prototype covering first overtone band (1500-1800nm) where bio-markers have pronounced absorption peaks was fabricated and verified of its performance. Reconstructed spectrum shows that the novel concept of miniaturized spectrometer is valid.

Wrist-wearable bioelectrical impedance analyzer with contact resistance compensation function

Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is used to calculate the body fat percentage of a human by applying a small amount of alternating current through a human body and measuring the impedance. As the electrode size of a BIA device becomes small, the measurement error of impedance becomes large due to the contact resistance between the electrode and human skin. Most commercial BIA devices, therefore, utilize electrodes large enough to ignore the effect of contact resistance, e.g. 35×40 mm2 × 4EA. We propose a novel method for compensating the contact resistance by performing a 4-point and a 2-point measurement alternately such that body impedance can be accurately estimated even with a considerably smaller size of electrode (8×8 mm2 × 4EA). Also, we report a wrist-wearable BIA device with single-finger contact measurement and analysis results of user data acquired from 148 volunteers: the correlation coefficient of body fat percentage was 0.903 and the SEE (Standard Error of Estimate) of body fat percentage was 3.07% when compared with InBody 720 (whole-body composition analyzer), which was found to be at the same level of performance as commercial portable upper-body BIA device.

Fabrication of an all‐layer‐printed TFT‐LCD device via large‐area UV imprinting lithography

Abstract Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) using ultraviolet (UV) rays is a technique in which unconventional lithographic patterns are formed on a substrate by curing a suitable liquid resist in contact with a transparent patterned mold, then releasing the freshly patterned material. Here, various solutions are introduced to achieve sufficient overlay accuracy and to overcome the technical challenges in resist patterning via UV imprinting. Moreover, resist patterning of all the layers in TFT and of the BM layer in CF was carried out using UV imprinting lithography to come up with a 12.1‐inch TFT‐LCD panel with a resolution of 1280×800 lines (125 ppi).