A novel technique for the selective photochemical synthesis of silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) on ZnO nanorod arrays is established by combining ultraviolet-assisted nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) for the definition of growth sites, hydrothermal reaction for the position-controlled growth of ZnO nanorods, and photochemical reduction for the decoration of Ag NPs on the ZnO nanorods. During photochemical reduction, the size distribution and loading of Ag NPs on ZnO nanorods can be tuned by varying the UV-irradiation time. The photochemical reduction is hypothesized to facilitate the adsorbed citrate ions on the surface of ZnO, allowing Ag ions to preferentially form Ag NPs on ZnO nanorods. The ratio of visible emission to ultraviolet (UV) emission for the Ag NP-decorated ZnO nanorod arrays, synthesized for 30 min, is 20.5 times that for the ZnO nanorod arrays without Ag NPs. The enhancement of the visible emission is believed to associate with the surface plasmon (SP) effect of Ag NPs. The Ag NP-decorated ZnO nanorod arrays show significant SP-induced enhancement of yellow-green light emission, which could be useful in optoelectronic applications. The technique developed here requires low processing temperatures (120 °C and lower) and no high-vacuum deposition tools, suitable for applications such as flexible electronics.
A sodium-heparinized glass microcapillary tube-assisted radio frequency (RF) resonator-based noncontact sensor is developed for the accurate quantification of uric acid in aqueous solutions. To achieve high sensitivity, a newly proposed coupling structure between the systems of coupled resonators is exploited to form an efficient long sensing region with a highly concentrated electromagnetic field, thereby effectively miniaturizing the sensor and consequently enhancing the filling factor. The proposed sensor linearly detects the uric acid concentration (2–20 mg/dL) in temperature-variant (0–40 °C) aqueous solutions with a high sensitivity of 2.762 MHz mg−1 dL−1 and a reproducibility of 0.51% relative standard deviation.
A new approach to surface roughening was established and optimized in this paper for enhancing the light extraction of high power AlGaInP-based LEDs, by combining ultraviolet (UV) assisted imprinting with dry etching techniques. In this approach, hexagonal arrays of cone-shaped etch pits are fabricated on the surface of LEDs, forming gradient effective-refractive-index that can mitigate the emission loss due to total internal reflection and therefore increase the light extraction efficiency. For comparison, wafer-scale FLAT-LEDs without any surface roughening, WET-LEDs with surface roughened by wet etching, and DRY-LEDs with surface roughened by varying the dry etching time of the AlGaInP layer, were fabricated and characterized. The average output power for wafer-scale FLAT-LEDs, WET-LEDs, and DRY3-LEDs (optimal) at 350 mA was found to be 102, 140, and 172 mW, respectively, and there was no noticeable electrical degradation with the WET-LEDs and DRY-LEDs. The light output was increased by 37.3% with wet etching, and 68.6% with dry etching surface roughening, respectively, without compromising the electrical performance of LEDs. A total number of 1600 LED chips were tested for each type of LEDs. The yield of chips with an optical output power of 120 mW and above was 0.3% (4 chips), 42.8% (684 chips), and 90.1% (1441 chips) for FLAT-LEDs, WET-LEDs, and DRY3-LEDs, respectively. The dry etching surface roughening approach developed here is potentially useful for the industrial mass production of wafer-scale high power LEDs.
This paper presents a micromachined stress-free through silicon via (TSV) backend process for AlGaN/GaN-on-Si (1 1 1) platform-based devices, which was processed by assisted back grinding, chemical mechanical polishing, deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and copper (Cu) electroplating for the TSV. The metal-filled TSV structure was formed to enhance thermal conduction from the frontend terminal to the backend terminal, especially the source region of the AlGaN/GaN-on-Si (1 1 1) platform-based RF power devices. At the end of a stress-free TSV dry etching process, we have changed RF power 600 W to 300 W to minimize thermal stress of the fabricated TSV electrode pad structure of the AlGaN/GaN-on-Si platform-based devices. Additionally, we have sputtered a multi-metal layer and electroplated Cu metal to interconnect a topside electrode to TSV. To protect the thinned TSV electrode pad structure from water pressure in a sawing process, we have covered photoresist (AZ4330RS) of 3.3 µm thickness on the top area of the structures. We confirmed that the proposed TSV formation method assisted by low-power operation DRIE and protection of the thinned TSV surface by using the thick photoresist is very effective to create minimally stressed TSV structures in AlGaN/GaN-on-Si platform-based devices. The improvement was proved by the yield of dice without bursting the pad structures on a 4 inch AlGaN/GaN-on-Si wafer.
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