Tae-Hong Kim

Mechanism of particle removal by megasonic waves

We elucidate the major mechanism of microparticle removal in the megasonic cleaning process through the direct visualization experiments. It is revealed that particles sitting on solids are removed by adjacent microbubbles that oscillate near the substrates and exert interfacial and pressure gradient forces on the particles. Other pressure and streaming effects are shown to be too weak to detach the particles.

Spontaneous Marangoni Mixing of Miscible Liquids at a Liquid− Liquid−Air Contact Line

We investigate the flow patterns created when a liquid drop contacts a reservoir liquid, which has implications on various physicochemical and biochemical reactions including mixing in microfluidic systems. The localized vortical flow spontaneously triggered by the difference of surface tension between the two liquids is studied, which is thus termed the Marangoni vortex. To quantitatively investigate the strength of vortices, we performed particle image velocimetry (PIV) experiments by varying the surface tension difference, the gap of the flow cell, the density and viscosity of the reservoir liquid, and the size of the drop. A scaling law that balances the interfacial energy of the system with the kinetic energy of the vortical flows allows us to understand the functional dependence of the Marangoni vortex strength on various experimental parameters.

Ultrasonic washing of textiles

We present the results of experimental investigation of ultrasonic washing of textiles. The results demonstrate that cavitation bubbles oscillating in acoustic fields are capable of removing soils from textiles. Since the washing performance is mitigated in a large washing bath when using an ultrasonic transducer, we propose a novel washing scheme by combining the ultrasonic vibration with a conventional washing method utilizing kinetic energy of textiles. It is shown that the hybrid washing scheme achieves a markedly enhanced performance up to 15% in comparison with the conventional washing machine. This work can contribute to developing a novel laundry machine with reduced washing time and waste water.

Evaporation-driven clustering of microscale pillars and lamellae

As a liquid film covering an array of micro- or nanoscale pillars or lamellae evaporates, its meniscus pulls the elastic patterns together because of capillary effects, leading to clustering of the slender microstructures. While this elastocapillary coalescence may imply various useful applications, it is detrimental to a semiconductor manufacturing process called the spin drying, where a liquid film rinses patterned wafers until drying. To understand the transient mechanism underlying such self-organization during and after liquid evaporation, we visualize the clustering dynamics of polymer micropatterns. Our visualization experiments reveal that the patterns clumped during liquid evaporation can be re-separated when completely dried in some cases. This restoration behavior is explained by considering adhesion energy of the patterns as well as capillary forces, which leads to a regime map to predict whether permanent stiction would occur. This work does not only extend our understanding of micropattern s...

Visualization of Vortex-induced Mixing at the Liquid-liquid-gas 3-phase Contact Line

Although the motion of the three-phase contact line on a solid substrate has been extensively studied thus far, the understanding of the dynamics of the contact line of liquid/liquid/gas phases is far from complete. Here we deposit a drop of isopropyl alcohol (IPA) on water and HFE-7100 whose free surfaces are exposed to air to observe the flow field around the contact line. By combining the shadowgraph and high-speed imaging techniques, we find that vortices are spontaneously generated at the contact line, which grow in size with time. The flow is attributed to the Marangoni stress that pulls a liquid of lower-surface tension toward a liquid surface having a higher surface tension. However, it is not still clear why the entrained lower-surface-tension liquid should whirl rapidly beneath the contact line. We also visualize the flow by the particle image velocimetry (PIV) to find out that the rotational velocity reaches the order of 1 mm/s near the free surface.

Visualization of Disruptive Bubble Behavior in Ultrasonic Fields

The bubble oscillations play an important role in ultrasonic cleaning processes. In the ultrasonic cleaning of semiconductor wafers, the cleaning process often damages micro/nano scale patterns while removing contaminant particles. However, the understanding of how patterns in semiconductor wafers are damaged during ultrasonic cleaning is far from complete yet. Here, we report the observations of the motion of bubbles that induce solid wall damage under 26 kHz continuous ultrasonic waves. We classified the motions into the four types, i.e. volume motion, shape motion, splitting or jetting motion and chaotic motion. Our experimental results show that bubble oscillations get unstable and nonlinear as the ultrasonic amplitude increases, which may exert a large stress on a solid surface raising the possibility of damaging microstructures.