—Results Published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Professor Oh Jung-woo and researcher Song Yun-won, both from Yonsei’s School of Integrated Technology, have developed a new technology using a metal catalyst in the chemical etching of semiconductors.  The results of the research were published August 7 in the prestigious Journal of Materials Chemistry A, under the title “In-plane and out-of-plane mass transport during metal-assisted chemical etching of GaAs.”

Metal-assisted chemical etching is a technique used to prepare porous and crystalline features, such as nanowires and micro-nano channels, in semiconductors, and it has applications in electronics, optics, plasmonics, and energy storage and conversion.  Professor Oh’s and Song’s research thus has important implications in terms of improving the efficiency of semiconductors and reducing the amount of electricity they consume.  According the authors:  “To our knowledge, this is the first report that experimentally verifies the vertical mass transport during metal-assisted chemical etching of semiconductors. Metal-assisted chemical etching of GaAs [gallium arsenide] with controlled metal catalyst thickness suggests that this technique is more attractive and useful for a wide range of practical applications.” 

This research was funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency.