• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.23-26
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• 2015

A seam carving based micro-crack detection method is proposed which aims at detecting the micro-crack regions in heterogeneously textured surface of polycrystalline solar cells. By calculating the seam which is a connected path of low energy pixels in the image, the micro-crack regions can be detected. Experimental results show that the proposed seam carving based micro-crack detection method has superior efficiency in detecting the micro-crack without background noise pixels and the algorithm's computation time is less than the conventional algorithm.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.183-190
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose an improved anisotropic diffusion model for micro-crack detection in heterogeneously textured surface of polycrystalline solar wafers. Due to the nature of the image sensor, the gray-level of the diagonal micro-crack is non-uniform. Thus, the conventional algorithms can't fully detect diagonal micro-cracks when the number of iteration is not enough. However, the increasing of the iteration number leads to increase computation time and detects micro-crack thicker than the original micro-crack. In order to overcome this drawback, we use the gradient of north, south, east, and west directions as well as extended directions. To calculate the diffusion coefficients, we compare the gradients of conventional directions and extended directions and apply the larger gradient values to the coefficient function. This is because the proposed method reflects the information of diagonal micro-crack. Comparing to Tsai et al.'s and Ko and Rheem's, the proposed algorithm shows superior efficiency in detecting the diagonal micro-cracks with less iterations in the images of polycrystalline solar wafers. In addition, it also shows that the thickness of segmented micro-crack is similar to the orignal micro-crack.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.61-67
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• 2014

Micro-cracks in crystalline silicon wafer often result in wafer breakage in solar wafer manufacturing, and also their existence may lead to electrical failure in post fabrication inspection. Therefore, the reliable detection of micro-cracks is of importance in the photovoltaic industry. In this paper, an experimental method to select optimal parameters in anisotropic diffusion filter is proposed. It can reliably detect micro-cracks by the distinct extension of boundary as well as noise reduction in near-infrared image patterns of micro-cracks. Its performance is verified by experiments of several type cracks machined.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.29-34
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• 2013

Solar cell has been considered as renewable green energy. Its silicon wafer thickness is thinner due to manufacturing cost and accordingly micro cracks is often generated in the process. Micro cracks result in bad quality of solar cell, and so their accurate and reliable detection is required. In this paper, near-infrared optics system is newly designed based on the analysis of near-infrared transmittance characteristics and its important parameters are optimally selected using the design of experiment for micro crack detection in solar cell wafer. The performance of the proposed method is verified using several experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.352-357
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• 2008

The detection of micro cracks in materials at the early stage of fracture is important in many structural safety assurance problems. The nonlinear ultrasonic technique (NUT) has been considered as a positive method for this, since it is more sensitive to micro crack than conventional linear ultrasonic methods. The basic principle is that the waveform is distorted by nonlinear stress-displacement relationship on the crack interface when the ultrasonic wave transmits through, and resultantly higher order harmonics are generated. This phenomenon is called the contact acoustic nonlinearity (CAN). The purpose of this paper is to prove the applicability of CAN experimentally by detection of micro fatigue crack artificailly initiated in Aluminum specimen. For this, we prepared fatigue specimens of Al6061 material with V-notch to initiate the crack, and the amplitude of second order harmonic was measured by scanning along the crack direction. From the results, we could see that the harmonic amplitude had good correlation with COD and it can be used to detect the crack depth in more accurately than the common 6 dB drop echo method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.369-375
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• 2012

In order to overcome the detection limit by the current nondestructive evaluation technology, a nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy(NRUS) technique was applied for detection of micro-scale cracks in a material. A down-shift of the resonance frequency and a variation of normalized amplitude of the resonance pattern were suggested as the nonlinear parameter for detection of micro-scale cracks in a materials. A natural-like crack were produced in a standard compact tension(CT) specimen by a low cycle fatigue test and the resonance patterns were acquired in each fatigue step. As the exciting voltage increases, a down-shift of resonance frequency were increases as well as the normalized amplitude decrease. This nonlinear effects were significant and even greater in the cracked specimen, but not observed in a intact specimen.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.114-121
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• 1995

An ultrasonic technique using normal-incident compressional waves was used to evaluate the surface and subsurface damage in ceramics produced by Hertzian indentation. Damage was produced by a blunt indenter (tungsten carbide ball) in glass-ceramic, green glass and silicon nitride. The damage was classified into two types; (1) Hertzian cone crack, in green glass and fine grain silicon nitride, and (2) distributed subsurface micro fractures, without surface damage, produced in glass ceramic. The ultrasonic technique was successful in detecting cone craks. The measurement results with the Hertzian cone cracks indicated that cracks perpendicular to the surface could be detected by the normal-incident compressional waws. Also shown is the capability of normal-incident compressional waves in detection distributed micro-sized cracks size of subsurface microfractures.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2010

Non-contacting, laser-based resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (L-RUS) was applied to characterize the microstructure of a material. L-RUS is widely used by virtue of its many features. Firstly, L-RUS can be used to measure mechanical damping which related to the microstructural variations (grain boundary, grain size, precipitation, defects, dislocations etc). Secondly, L-RUS technology can be applied to various areas, such as the noncontact and nondestructive quality test for precision components as well as noncontact and nondestructive materials characterization. In addition, L-RUS technology can measure the whole field resonant frequency at once. In this paper, we evaluated material characteristics such as resonant frequency, nonlinear propagation characteristic through the development of Laser-Based Resonant Ultrasound spectroscopy (Laser-RUS) System for the detection of Micro Crack in Materials.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.239-244
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• 2011

In this paper, we analyzed the electrical characteristics with crack pattern in crystalline solar cell. crystalline solar cells with a thin substrate, even small shocks can be easily damaged. Before the module goes through many processes, because the solar cells are at risk of a crack. That occurred early in the PV module micro-crack is not easily detection by eye test or output test. Because the EL (Electroluminescence) device has been detected using. PV module is made by laminated of a variety of materials. By different properties of each material will affect the crack. For this reason, the crack will grow and affect the output. And We analyzed the three crack patterns in crystalline solar cell. A growth of cracks on crystalline solar cell was interpreted by analysing generated cracks on the PV modules. Based on this interpretation, an electrical output value was calculated by mathematical modeling on electrical output characteristic with each crack patterns.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.479-484
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• 2009

Nondestructive evaluation(NDE) of ceramic matrix composites is essential for developing reliable ceramics for industrial applications. In the work, C-Scan image analysis has been used to characterize surface crack of SiC ceramics nondestructively. The possibility of detection of surface crack were carried out experimentally by two types of ultrasonic equipment of SDS-win and $\mu$-SDS, and three types of transducer of 25, 50 and 125 MHz. A surface micro-crack of ceramics was not detected by transducer of 25 MHz and 50 MHz. Though the focus method was detected dimly the crack by transducer of 125 MHz, the defocus method could detect the shape of diamond indenter. As a whole, the focus method and the defocus method came to the conclusion that micro crack have a good possibility for detection.