ELECTROCHEMICAL NANOPATTERNING:

Modifying the surface morphology of materials on submicron length scales is considered to be a key future technology for various applications in electronics, optics, biology, and medicine. Electrochemical techniques offer significant advantages over other surface modification technologies, particularly for crafting the complex high-aspect-ratio three-dimensional structures of hard and brittle materials. While conventional electrochemical methods are generally ill-suited for micro- and nanostructuring of materials, it has recently been found that the application of short voltage pulses between a tool electrode and a workpiece allows confining electrochemical reactions down to submicrometric scales. In addition to its technological importance, the pulse electrochemical system provides valuable information on complex dynamics at electrochemical interfaces, such as electrolyte transport, electrode polarization, and electrochemical reactions. This project attempts to develop a comprehensive multiphysics computational platform which enables not only the prediction of electrochemical nanostructuring with short voltage pulses but also the fundamental study of complex and dynamic electrochemical processes at the nanoscale.

§ J. Kenney and G.S. Hwang, “Basics: Handling Techniques – Etching,“ in The Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources (2009); invited.

§ J. Kenney and G.S. Hwang, “Computational Analysis of Intratool Interactions in Electrochemical Micromachining with Multitip Tool Electrodes,“ Electrochem. Solid-State Lett. 9, D21 (2006).

§ J. Kenney and G.S. Hwang, “Etch trends in electrochemical machining with ultrashort voltage pulses: Prediction from theory and simulation,“ Electrochem. Solid-State Lett. 9, D1 (2006).

§ J. Kenney and G.S. Hwang, “Electrochemical Machining with ultrashort voltage pulses: modeling of charging dynamics and feature profile evolution,” Nanotechnology 16, S309 (2005).

§ J. Kenney, W. Shin and G.S. Hwang, “Two-dimensional Computational Model for Electrochemical Micromachining with Ultrashort Voltage Pulses,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 3774 (2004).