• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.20-24
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• 2017

Recently, three-dimensional (3D) light harvesting structures are highly attracted because of their high light harvesting capacity and charge collection efficiencies. In this study, we have fabricated $Cu_2ZnSn(S_xSe_{1-x})_4$ based 3D thin film solar cells on PR patterned Molybdenum (Mo) substrates using photolithography technique. Specifically, Mo patterns were deposited on PR patterned Mo substrates by sputtering and the thin Cu-Zn-Sn stacked layer was deposited over this Mo patterns by sputtering technique. The stacked Zn-Sn-Cu precursor thin films were sulfo-selenized to form CZTSSe pattern. Finally, CZTSSe absorbers were coated with thin CdS layer using chemical bath deposition and ZnO window layer was deposited over CZTSSe/CdS using DC sputtering technique. Fabricated 3-D solar cells were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis, Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) to study their structural, compositional and morphological properties, respectively. The 3% efficiency is achieved for this kind of solar cell. Further efforts will be carried out to improve the performance of solar cell through various optimizations.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• 제2권4호
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• pp.187-192
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• 2011

Photoelectrochemical performances of ZnO electrodes are enhanced by coupling with cobalt-based catalyst (CoPi) in phosphate electrolyte (pH 7). For this study, hexagonal pillar-shaped ZnO nanorods are grown on ZnO electrodes through a chemical bath deposition, onto which CoPi is deposited with different photodeposition times (10-30 min). A scanning electron microscopic study indicates that CoPi deposition does not induce any change of ZnO morphology and an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopic analysis shows that inorganic phosphate ions (Pi) exist on ZnO surface. Bare ZnO electrodes generate the current of ca. $0.36mA/cm^2$ at a bias potential of 0.5 V vs. SCE, whereas ZnO/CoPi (deposited for 10 min) has ca. 50%-enhanced current ($0.54mW/cm^2$) under irradiation of AM 1.5G-light ($400mW/cm^2$). The excess loading of CoPi on ZnO results in decrease of photocurrents as compared to bare ZnO likely due to limited electrolyte access to ZnO and/or CoPi-mediated recombination of photogenerated charge carriers. The primary role of CoPi is speculated to trap the photogenerated holes and thereby oxidize water into molecular oxygen via an intervalency cycle among Co(II), Co(III), and Co(IV).

• 한국결정성장학회지
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.108-113
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• 2013

$CuInSe_2$(CIS) chalcopyrite 물질은 고효율 박막 태양전지를 위한 광흡수층의 물질로 매우 잘 알려져 있다. 최근 태양광 산업의 흐름은 안정적인 재료 개발과 가격 경쟁력 있는 태양전지를 위한 효율적인 제조 공정을 일치시키는 것이다. 저가의 CIS 광흡수층 위해 다양한 방법으로 제조를 시도하였고, 본 논문에서는 CIS 광흡수층을 저가형으로 제조를 위해 상용화되는 6 mm pieces를 사용하여 high frequency ball milling과 cryogenic milling을 이용해 CIS 나노입자를 얻었다. 그리고, CIS 광흡수층은 불활성 분위기의 glove box 안에서 milling된 나노입자를 사용하여 paste coating법으로 제조하였다. Chalcopyrite CIS 박막은 기판온도 550도에서 30분간 셀렌화 한 후 성공적으로 제조되었으며, Al/ZnO/CdS/CIS/Mo 구조의 CIS 태양전지는 evaporation, sputtering 및 chemical bath deposition(CBD) 등 다양한 증착 방법으로 각각 제조하였다. 결론적으로, 나노입자를 이용한 CIS 태양전지 전기적 변환효율은 1.74 %를 얻었으며, 개방전압(Voc)는 29 mV, 합선전류밀도(Jsc)는 35 $mA/cm^2$, 그리고 충진율(FF)은 17.2 %였다. 나노입자 CIS 광흡수층은 energy dispersive spectroscopy(EDS), x-ray diffraction(XRD) 그리고 high-resolution scanning electron microscopy(HRSEM) 등으로 특성 분석을 하였다.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제34권3호
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• pp.856-862
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• 2013

The photoanode electrode of $TiO_2$ nanotubes (NTs) anchored with ZnS/CdSSe/CdS quantum dots (QDs) was prepared by anodization of Ti metal and successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) procedure. The tuning of the band gap of CdSSe was done with controlled composition of Cd, S, or Se during the SILAR. A ladder-like energy structure suitable for carrier transfer was attained with the photoanode electrode. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of our solar cell fabricated with the regular array of $TiO_2$ NTs anchored with CdSSe/CdS or CdSe/CdS QDs [i.e., (CdSSe/CdS/$TiO_2NTs$) or (CdSe/CdS/$TiO_2NTs$)] was PCE = 3.49% and 2.81% under the illumination at 100 mW/$cm^2$, respectively. To protect the photocorrosion of our solar cell from the electrolyte and to suppress carrier recombination, ZnS was introduced onto CdSSe/CdS. The PCE of our solar cell with the structure of a photoanode electrode, (ZnS/CdSSe/CdS/$TiO_2$ NTs/Ti) was 4.67% under illumination at 100 mW/$cm^2$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2010년도 춘계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.90.1-90.1
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• 2010

Due to the rapidly diminishing energy sources and higher energy production cost, the interest in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) has been increasing dramatically in recent years. A typical DSSC is constructed of wide band gap semiconductor electrode such as $TiO_2$ or ZnO that are anchored by light-harvesting sensitizer dyes and surrounded by a liquid electrolyte with a iodide ion/triiodide ion redox couple. DSSCs based on one-dimensional nano-structures, such as ZnO nanorods, have been recently attracting increasing attention due to their excellent electrical conductivity, high optical transmittance, diverse and abundant configurations, direct band gap, absence of toxicity, large exiton binding energy, etc. However, solar-to-electrical conversion performances of DSSCs composed of ZnO n-type photo electrode compared with that of $TiO_2$ are not satisfactory. An important reason for the low photovoltaic performance is the dissolution of $Zn^{2+}$ by the adsorption of acidic dye followed by the formation of agglomerates with dye molecules which could block the I-diffusion pathway into the dye molecule on the ZnO surface. In this paper, we prepared the DSSC with the ZnO electrode using the chemical bath deposition (CBD) method under low temperature condition (< $100^{\circ}C$). It was demonstrated that the ZnO seed layers played an important role on the formation of the ZnO nanostructures using CBD. To achieve truly low-temperature growth of the ZnO nanostructures on the substrates, a two-step method was developed and optimized in the present work. Firstly, ZnO seed layer was prepared on the FTO substrate through the spin-coating method. Secondly, the deposited ZnO seed substrate was immersed into an aqueous solution of 0.25M zinc nitrate hexahydrate and 0.25M hexamethylenetetramine at $90^{\circ}C$ for hydrothermal reaction several times.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2016년도 제50회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.407.1-407.1
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• 2016

Electrochromism is defined as a phenomenon which involves persistently repeated change of optical properties between bleached state and colored state by simultaneous injection of electrons and ions, sufficient to induce an electrochemical redox process. Due to this feature, considerable progress has been made in the synthesis of electrochromic (EC) materials, improvements of EC properties in EC devices such as light shutter, smart window and variable reflectance mirrors etc. Among the variable EC materials, solid-state inorganics in particular, metal oxide semiconducting materials such as nickel oxide (NiO) have been investigated extensively. The NiO that is an anodic EC material is of special interest because of high color contrast ratio, large dynamic range and low material cost. The high performance EC devices should present the use of standard industrial production techniques to produce films with high coloration efficiency, rapid switching speed and robust reversibility. Generally, the color contrast and the optical switching speed increase drastically if high surface area is used. The structure of porous thin film provides a specific surface area and can facilitate a very short response time of the reaction between the surface and ions. The large variety of methods has been used to prepare the porous NiO thin films such as sol-gel process, chemical bath deposition and sputtering. Few studies have been reported on NiO thin films made by using sol-gel method. However, compared with dry process, wet processes that have the questions of the durability and the vestige of bleached state color limit the thin films practical use, especially when prepared by sol-gel method. In this study, we synthesis the porous NiO thin films on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by using sputtering and anodizing method. Also we compared electrical and optical properties of NiO thin films prepared by sol gel. The porous structure is promised to be helpful to the properties enhancement of the EC devices.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2016년도 제50회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.178-178
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• 2016

Every display is equipped with a cover glass to protect the underneath displaying devices from mechanical and environmental impact during its use. The strengthened glass such as Gorilla glass.$^{TM}$ has been exclusively adopted as a cover glass in many displays. Conventionally, the strengthened glass has been manufactured via ion-exchange process in wet salt bath at high temperature of around $500^{\circ}C$ for hours of treatment time. During ion-exchange process, Na ions with smaller diameter are substituted with larger-diameter K ions, resulting in high compressive stress in near-surface region and making the treated glass very resistant to scratch or impact during its use. In this study, PIIID (plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition) technique was used to implant metal ions into the glass surface for strengthening. In addition, due to the plasmonic effect of the implanted metal ions, the metal-ion implanted glass samples got colored. To implant metal ions, plasma immersion ion implantation technique combined with HiPIMS method was adopted. The HiPIMS pulse voltage of up to 1.4 kV was applied to the 3" magnetron sputtering targets (Cu, Ag, Au, Al). At the same time, the sample stage with glass samples was synchronously pulse-biased via -50 kV high voltage pulse modulator. The frequency and pulse width of 100 Hz and 15 usec, respectively, were used during metal ion implantation. In addition, nitrogen ions were implanted to study the strengthening effect of gas ion implantation. The mechanical and optical properties of implanted glass samples were investigated using micro-hardness tester and UV-Vis spectrometer. The implanted ion distribution and the chemical states along depth was studied with XPS (X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy). A cross-sectional TEM study was also conducted to investigate the nature of implanted metal ions. The ion-implanted glass samples showed increased hardness of ~1.5 times at short implantation times. However, with increasing the implantation time, the surface hardness was decreased due to the accumulation of implantation damage.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2011년도 춘계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.106.1-106.1
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• 2011

The Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin film solar cells have been achieved until almost 20% efficiency by NREL. These solar cells include chemically deposited CdS as buffer layer between CIGS absorber layer and ZnO window layer. Although CIGS solar cells with CdS buffer layer show excellent performance, the short wavelength response of CIGS solar cell is limited by narrow CdS band gap of about 2.42 eV. Taking into consideration the environmental aspect, the toxic Cd element should be replaced by a different material. Among Cd-free candidate materials, the CIGS thin film solar cells with ZnS buffer layer seem to be promising with 17.2%(module by showa shell K.K.), 18.6%(small area by NREL). However, ZnS/CIGS solar cells still show lower performance than CdS/CIGS solar cells. There are several reported reasons to reduce the efficiency of ZnS/CIGS solar cells. Nakada reported ZnS thin film had many defects such as stacking faults, pin-holes, so that crytallinity of ZnS thin film is poor, compared to CdS thin film. Additionally, it was known that the hetero-interface between ZnS and CIGS layer made unfavorable band alignment. The unfavorable band alignment hinders electron transport at the heteo-interface. In this study, we focused on growing defect-free ZnS thin film and for favorable band alignment of ZnS/CIGS, bandgap of ZnS and CIGS, valece band structure of ZnS/CIGS were modified. Finally, we verified the photovoltaic properties of ZnS/CIGS solar cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2007년도 춘계학술대회
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• pp.339-342
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• 2007

$Cu(In_{1-x}Ga_{x})Se_2$(CIGS)는 매우 큰 광흡수계수를 가지고 있으므로 박막형 태양전지의 광흡수층 재료로서 많은 연구가 진행되고 있다. 박막이 태양전지의 광흡수층으로 이용되기 위해서는 큰 결정크기와 평탄한 표면, 적당한 전기적 특성을 가져야 한다. 이러한 특성들은 CIGS 박막의 조성에 큰 영향을 받고 있는 것으로 보고되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 동시증발법을 이용하여 Cu/(In+Ga) 비를 0.9로 고정한 후 Ga 조성(Ga/(In+Ga)의 비 : 0.32, 0.49, 0.69, 0.8, 1)을 변화시켜 Wide band gap CIGS 박막태양전지를 만들었다. 기판은 soda line glass를 사용하였고 뒷면 전극으로는 Mo를 스퍼터링법으로 증착하였다. 또한 버퍼층으로는 기존에 쓰이고 있는 CdS를 CBD(Chemical Bath Deposition)법으로 층착시켰으며, 윈도우층으로는 i-ZnO/n-ZnO를 스파터링 법으로 층착하였다. 그리고 앞면전극으로는 Al을 E-beam 으로 증착하였다. 분석은 XRD, SEM, QE로 분석하였다. 위 실험에서 얻은 결과로는 Ga/(In+Ga)비가 증가할수록 Cu(In,Ga)Se2 박막은 회절 peak들이 큰 회절각으로 이동하였고, 이것은 Ga 원자와 In 원자의 원자반경의 차이에서 기인된 것으로 사료된다. 또한 Ga 조성이 증가할수록 단파장 쪽으로 이동하는 것을 볼 수 있으며, Voc가 증가하다가 에너지 밴드캡이 1.62 eV 이상에서는 Voc가 감소하는 것을 볼 수 있는데 이것은 Ga 조성이 증가할수록 에너지 밴드캡이 커지면서 defect level 이 존재하기 때문인 것으로 사료된다. Ga/(In+Ga)비가 1일 때의 변환효율은 8.5 %이고， Voc : 0.74 (V), Jsc : 17.2 ($mA/cm^{2}$), F.F : 66.6(%) 이다.

• 한국진공학회지
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• 제5권3호
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• pp.213-217
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• 1996

서냉법과 용액성장법으로 HgS 및 HgS : Co 결정과 박막을 성장시켜서 결정구조를 조사하고 , 광흡수를 측정했다. 이들 결정 및 박막은 육방정계 구조로써 HgS 및 HgS : Co 결정의 격자상수는 각각 $aa_0=4.155\AA$, $c_0=9.505{\AA}$과 ao=4.148$\AA$, co=9.487$\AA$ 이었다. 또한 HgS 및 HgS박막에 대한 격자상수는 각각 $a_0=4.148{\AA}$, $c_0=9.462{\AA}$와 $a_0=4.135{\AA}$, $c_0=9.442{\AA}$으로 주어졌다. 293K에서 측정된 광학적 에너지 간격은 HgS 및 HgS : Co 결정이 2.040eV, 1.900eV 이고, HgS 및 Hgs : Co 박막은 2.440, 1.940eV 로 각각 주어졌다.