• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.2245-2246
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• 2013

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.1959-1960
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• 2013

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.99-106
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• 1998

Recently, scientists introduced a new type of microscope capable of investigating nonconducting surfaces in an atomic scale, which is called AFM (Atomic Force Microscope). It was an innovative attempt to overcome the limitation of STM (Scanning Tunnelling Microscope) which has been able to obtain the image of conducting surfaces. Surfaces of samples are imaged with atomic resolution. The AFM is an imaging tool or a profiler with unprecedented 3-D resolution for various surface types. The AFM technology, however, leaves a lot of room for improvement due to its delicate and fragile probing mechanism. One of the room for improvements is gap control between probe tip and sample surface. Distance between probe tip and sample surface must be kept in below one Angtrom in order to measure the sample surface in Angstrom resolution. In this paper, AFM system modeling, experimental system identification and control scheme based on system identification are performed and finally sample surface is measured by home-built AFM with such a control scheme.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.35-38
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• 2012

In this study, we have attempted to characterize the photovoltaic effect in real-time measurement of photoinduced current in a poly-Si-based solar cell using photoconductive atomic force microscopy (PC-AFM). However, the high contact resistance that originates from the metal-semiconductor Schottky contact disturbs the current flow and makes it difficult to measure the photoinduced current. To solve this problem, a thin metallic film has been coated on the surface of the device, which successfully decreases the contact resistance. In the PC-AFM analysis, we used a metal-coated conducting cantilever tip as the top electrode of the solar cell and light from a halogen lamp was irradiated on the PC-AFM scanning region. As the light intensity becomes stronger, the current value increases up to $200{\mu}A$ at 80 W, as more electrons and hole carriers are generated because of the photovoltaic effect. The ratio of the conducting area at different conditions was calculated, and it showed a behavior similar to that generated by a photoinduced current. On analyzing the PC-AFM measurement results, we have verified the correlation between the light intensity and photoinduced current of the poly-Si-based solar cell in nanometer scale.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.1098-1103
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• 1994

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) images of two conducting layered transition-metal ditellurides, $TaTe_2$ and $Ta_{0.5}$$V_{0.5}$$Te_2$, were examined and their surface and bulk structural features were compared. All the measured unit cell parameters from AFM image were consistent and in complete agreement with the results of the X-ray diffraction. The microscopic structures of corrugated surface tellurium sheets were strongly affected by the modification of metal double zig-zag chains underneath Te surface. Large difference in the height amplitudes of AFM images in $TaTe_2$ and $Ta_{0.5}$$V_{0.5}$$Te_2$ phases was observed and this reflects large difference in the surface electron densities of two phases. On surface, the shorter intralayer Te…Te contacts in $TaTe_2$ induce more electron transfer from Te p-block bands to Ta d-block bands, thus electron density on surface observed in $TaTe_2$ is much lower than that of $Ta_{0.5}$$V_{0.5}$$Te_2$. However, in bulk, interlayer Te…Te contacts in V substituted phase are shorter than those in $TaTe_2$ phase, thus tellurium-to-metal electron transfer occurs more easily in $Ta_{0.5}$$V_{0.5}$$Te_2$ phase.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.271-274
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• 2010

We examined the tunneling current behaviors of magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) cells utilizing conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM) interfaced with an external magnetic field generator. By introducing current through coils, a magnetic field was generated and then controlled by a current feedback circuit. This enabled the characterization of the tunneling current under various magnetic fields. The current-voltage (I-V) property was measured using a contact mode AFM with a metal coated conducting cantilever at a specific magnetic field intensity. The obtained magnetoresistance (MR) ratios of the MTJ cells were about 21% with no variation seen from the different sized MTJ cells; the value of resistance $\times$ area (RA) were 8.5 K-12.5 K $({\Omega}{\mu}m^2)$. Since scanning probe microscopy (SPM) performs an I-V behavior analysis of ultra small size without an extra electrode, we believe that this novel characterization method utilizing an SPM will give a great benefit in characterizing MTJ cells. This novel method gives us the possibility to measure the electrical properties of ultra small MTJ cells, namely below $0.1\;{\mu}m\;{\times}\;0.1\;{\mu}m$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.283.1-283.1
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• 2016

Tin Oxide(SnO2) has been widely investigated as a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) and can be used in optoelectronic devices such as solar cell and flat-panel displays. It would be applicable to fabricating the wide bandgap semiconductor because of its bandgap of 3.6 eV. In addition, SnO2 is commonly used as gas sensors. To fabricate high quality epitaxial SnO2 thin films, a powder sputtering method was used, in contrast to typical sputtering technique with sintered target. Single crystalline sapphire(0001) substrates were used. The samples were prepared with varying the growth parameters such as gas environment and film thickness. Then, the samples were characterized by using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy measurements. We found that the strain evolution of the samples was highly affected by gas environment and growth rate, resulted in the delamination under O2 environment.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.1038-1042
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• 2004

The photoelectric responses of a biodevice consisting of chlorophyll $\alpha$ Langmuir-Blodgett film were investigated. Chlorophyll $\alpha$ Langmuir-Blodgett films were deposited onto ITO and Au coated glass. To confirm film formation, surface analysis of chlorophyll $\alpha$ Langmuir-Blodgett film was carried out by measurement using atomic force microscopy. The metal/insulator/metal structured biodevice was constructed by depositing aluminum onto the chlorophyll $\alpha$ Langmuir-Blodgett film surface. To investigate the photoelectric response, the current-voltage characteristic was measured by the conducting metal tip. The photoswitching function and transient photovoltage characteristics of the proposed device were measured by irradiation with Ar ion laser and $N_2$ pulse laser, respectively. This research suggested that the proposed biodevice consisting of chlorophyll $\alpha$ could be applied to the molecular scale biosensor and/or bioelectronic device.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.8
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• pp.1230-1235
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• 2017

We studied surface texture-etching of glass substrate by using reactive ion etching process with various working pressure (0.7~9.0 mT). With the increase in the pressure, a haze parameter, which means diffusive transmittance/total transmittance, was increased in overall wavelength regions, as measured by spectrophotometer. Also, atomic force microscopy (AFM) study also showed that the surface topography transformed from V-shaped, keen surface to U-shaped, flattened surface, which is beneficial for nanocrystalline silicon semiconductor growth with suppressing defective crack formation. The texture-etched ZnO:Al combined with textured glass exhibited pronounced haze properties that showed 60~90 % in overall spectral wavelength regions. This promising optical properties of double textured, transparent conducting substrate can be widely applied in silicon thin film photovoltaics and other optoelectronic devices.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.07c
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• pp.1553-1555
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• 2003

Coatings on glass with highly transparent conducting oxide films(TCOs) are performed mostly by using indium tin oxide(ITO). This Oxide material is very common for applications where both high electrical conductivity. Photovoltaic cells, transparent electrical heater, selective optical filter, and a optical transmittance are essential. In this study, ITO thin films were deposited on $SiO_2$/soda-line glass plates by a dc magnetron sputtering technique. The crystallinity and electrical properties of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction(XRD), atomic force microscopy(AFM) scanning and 4-point probe. The optical transmittance of ITO films in the range of 300-800nm were measured with a spectrophotometer. As a result, we obtained polycrystalline structured ITO films with (222), (400), and (440) peak. Transmittance of all the films were higher than 90% in the visible range.