No-Won Park

Drug response of captured BT20 cells and evaluation of circulating tumor cells on a silicon nanowire platform.

Research on specific drug responses of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) provides very important information for treatment of cancer patients at a patient-specific level. For this reason, platforms for high capture efficiency of CTCs are essential for clinical evaluation of patient-specific drug responses of CTCs. Recently, nanostructure based platforms have been developed with a high capture efficiency of more than 93% due to high-affinity binding and the 3D nanotopographic features of the nanostructure substrate. In this study, the breast carcinoma cell-line (BT20) cells with an ultra-low abundance range were captured by streptavidin (STR)-functionalized silicon nanowire (SiNW) platforms for evaluation of capture efficiency. A capture efficiency of more than 90% was achieved. Specific drug responses of BT20 cells captured on STR-SiNW platforms were analyzed using tamoxifen or docetaxel as a function of incubation time and dose, and compared with a 96-well plate platform. The drug responses of CTCs on STR-SiNW platforms were more sensitive than a 96-well plate platform. In addition, CTCs were successfully captured and evaluated their size distribution from the blood of breast cancer patients using fluorescence imaging. In conclusion, we suggest that the SiNW platform is adaptable for clinical use in evaluation of CTCs and drug response tests.

Thermoelectric characterization and fabrication of nanostructured p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 and n-type Bi2Te3 thin film thermoelectric energy generator with an in-plane planar structure

This paper presents in-plane bismuth-telluride-based thermoelectric (TE) energy generators fabricated using metal-shadow and radio-frequency sputtering methods at room temperature. The TE energy generators consist of four couples of 300-nm-thick nanostructured Bi2Te3 (n-BT) and Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 (p-BST) thin films used as n-type and p-type materials, respectively, on a Si substrate for the p/n junctions of the TE energy generators. Furthermore, the effect of annealing treatment of both n-BT and p-BST thin films on the electrical and TE properties as well as the TE performance of the TE energy generators is discussed. By varying the temperature between the hot and cold junction legs of the n-BT/p-BST in-plane TE energy generators annealed at 200 °C, the maximum output voltage and power are determined to be ∼3.6 mV and ∼1.1 nW, respectively, at a temperature difference of 50 K. The output powers increased by ∼590% compared to that of the as-grown TE generator at a temperature difference of 90 K. This improvement in the TE performance is attributed to the enhancement of the electrical conductivity after heat treatment. From a numerical simulation conducted using a commercial software (COMSOL), we are confident that it plays a crucial role in determining the dimension (i.e., thickness of each leg) and material properties of both n-BT and p-BST materials of the in-plane TE energy generators.

Anisotropic temperature-dependent thermal conductivity by an Al2O3 interlayer in Al2O3/ZnO superlattice films

The thermal conductivity of superlattice films is generally anisotropic and should be studied separately in the in-plane and cross-plane directions of the films. However, previous works have mostly focused on the cross-plane thermal conductivity because the electrons and phonons in the cross-plane direction of superlattice films may result in much stronger interface scattering than that in the in-plane direction. Nevertheless, it is highly desirable to perform systematic studies on the effect of interface formation in semiconducting superlattice films on both in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities. In this study, we determine both the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities of Al2O3 (AO)/ZnO superlattice films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on SiO2/Si substrates in the temperature range of 50-300 K by the four-point-probe 3-ω method. Our experimental results indicate that the formation of an atomic AO layer (0.82 nm) significantly contributes to the decrease of the cross-plane thermal conductivity of the AO/ZnO superlattice films compared with that of AO/ZnO thin films. The cross-plane thermal conductivity (0.26-0.63 W m-1 K-1 of the AO/ZnO superlattice films (with an AO layer of ∼0.82 nm thickness) is approximately ∼150%-370% less than the in-plane thermal conductivity (0.96-1.19 W m-1 K-1) of the corresponding film, implying significant anisotropy. This indicates that the suppression of the cross-plane thermal conductivity is mainly attributed to the superlattice, rather than the nanograin columnar structure in the films. In addition, we theoretically analyzed strong anisotropic behavior of the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities of the AO/ZnO superlattice films in terms of temperature dependence.