• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.566-572
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• 2020

In the recent years, thin film solar cells (TFSCs) have emerged as a viable replacement for crystalline silicon solar cells and offer a variety of choices, particularly in terms of synthesis processes and substrates (rigid or flexible, metal or insulator). Among the thin-film absorber materials, SnS has great potential for the manufacturing of low-cost TFSCs due to its suitable optical and electrical properties, non-toxic nature, and earth abundancy. However, the efficiency of SnS-based solar cells is found to be in the range of 1 ~ 4 % and remains far below those of CdTe-, CIGS-, and CZTSSe-based TFSCs. Aside from the improvement in the physical properties of absorber layer, enormous efforts have been focused on the development of suitable buffer layer for SnS-based solar cells. Herein, we investigate the device performance of SnS-based TFSCs by introducing double buffer layers, in which CdS is applied as first buffer layer and ZnMgO films is employed as second buffer layer. The effect of the composition ratio (Mg/(Mg+Zn)) of RF sputtered ZnMgO films on the device performance is studied. The structural and optical properties of ZnMgO films with various Mg/(Mg+Zn) ratios are also analyzed systemically. The fabricated SnS-based TFSCs with device structure of SLG/Mo/SnS/CdS/ZnMgO/AZO/Al exhibit a highest cell efficiency of 1.84 % along with open-circuit voltage of 0.302 V, short-circuit current density of 13.55 mA cm^-2, and fill factor of 0.45 with an optimum Mg/(Mg + Zn) ratio of 0.02.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.372-377
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• 2016

Communication flow is changing rapidly. Recently, a range of wearable devices such as wearable glasses and wearable watch, have been launched. These kinds of wearable devices help people to live a more comfortable life. Wearable devices most have an antenna for wireless communication. This paper reports a transparent antenna that is made of an optically transparent material for wearable glasses. Transparent antenna can be applied to smart windows and will not disturb the view of user. IZTO/Ag/IZTO multilayer electrode has higher electrical and optical properties. This antenna is available because of its good electrical properties. This study measured the performance of the proposed transparent antenna, which is made of a multilayer electrode, applied to a lens. The proposed antenna was simulated with several substrates. The antenna impedance was matched with length and width of the antenna. The antenna's conductivity and transparency was measured using a HMS-3000 and UV-spectrometer. A 40nm thick Ag single layer antenna was fabricated on a flexible polyimide substrate for comparing the antenna performances. The fabricated antenna is useable at a frequency of 2.4-2.5GHz, which is suitable for Wifi communications and has peak gain of 2.89dBi and an efficiency of 34%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.140-145
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• 2006

The mort commonly available substrate material is glass in the display fibrication process. However, glass is not desirable due to its heaviness and fragility. Recently, plastics such polysulfone (PSF), polyethesulfone (PES), polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and cyclic olefin polymers (COP) have been investigated to replace glass as a substrate material for display fibrication. Plastic substrates are advantageous in that they are lightweight, huh impart resistance, flexibility, and ability for roll to roll manufacturing process. But many plastics have poor chemical resistance in organic solvent. The chemica resistance is also lequired because they are exposed to solvents for various chemical treatments din the manufacturing process. So, we have an interest in the chemical modification of PSF to improve chemical resistance. We introduced crosslinkable imide moieties using chloromethylation method for the modification of PSF which could be overcome above shortcomings for display substrate based on plastic film. We prepared the cross-linked polysulfone films which were represented chemical resistance in HeOH, THF, DMSO and NMP. The thermal properties were measured by TGA, DSC and TMA. As the results, we have confirmed to enhance of the thermal property. They had low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) which decreased to 15% and had increased $T_g\;from\;180^{\circ}C\;to\;252^{\circ}C$. Cross-linked polysulfone films with imide side-chain had good optical properties and chemical resistance so that they could be used as flexible display substrate.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.93-97
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• 2006

Polymer light emitting diodes (PLEDs) are expected to be commercialized as next generation displays by advantages of the fast response time, low driving voltage and easy manufacturing process for large sized flexible display. Generally, the electrical and optical properties of PLEDs are affected by the surface conditions of transparent electrode. The PLED devices with ITO/PEDOT:PSS/PVK/PFO-poss/LiF/Al structures were prepared by using the spin coating method. For this, PEDOT:PSS(poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfolnate)) Al 4083 and PVK(N-vinylcabozole) were used as hole injection and transport layers. The PFO-poss(poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene)) was used as the emitting layer. The dependence of $O_2$ plasma treatment of ITO electrode on the electrical and optical properties of PLEDs were investigated. The sheet resistances increased slightly with an improved surface roughness of ITO electrode as the RF power increased during $O_2$ plasma treatment. The PLED devices prepared on the ITO/Glass substrates, which were plasma-treated at 40 watt in RF power for 30 seconds under 40 mtorr $O_2$ pressure, showed the maximum external emission efficiency of 0.86 lm/W and the maximum luminance of $250\;cd/m^2$, respectively. The CIE color coordinates are ranged $X\;=\;0.13{\sim}0.18$ and $Y\;=\;0.10{\sim}0.16$, showing blue color. emission.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.457-457
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• 2010

Flexible organic light emitting diodes (F-OLEDs) requires excellent moisture permeation barriers to minimize the degradation of the F-OLEDs device. Specifically, F-OLEDs device need a barrier layer that transmits less than $10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ of water and $10^{-5}g/m^2/day$ of oxygen. To increase the life time of F-OLEDs, therefore, it is indispensable to protect the organic materials from water and oxygen. Severe groups have reported on multi-layerd barriers consisting inorganic thin films deposited by plasma enhenced chemical deposition (PECVD) or sputtering. However, it is difficult to control the formation of granular-type morphology and microscopic pinholes in PECVD and sputtering. On the contrary, atomic layer deoposition (ALD) is free of pinhole, highly uniform, conformal films and show good step coverage. Thus, $Al_2O_3/TiO_2$ multi-layer was deposited onto the polyethersulfon (PES) substrate by electron cyclotron resonance atomic layer deposition (ECR-ALD), and the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) were measured. WVTR of moisture permeation barriers is dependent upon density of films and initial state of polymer surface. A significant reduction of WVTR was achieved by increasing density of films and by applying low plasma induced interlayer on the PES substrate. In order to minimize damage of polymer surface, a 10 nm thick $TiO_2$ was deposited on PES prior to a $Al_2O_3$ ECR-ALD process. High quality barriers were developed from $Al_2O_3$ barriers on the $TiO_2$ interlayer. WVTR of $Al_2O_3$ by introducing $TiO_2$ interlayer was recorded in the range of $10^{-3}g/m^2.day$ at $38^{\circ}C$ and 100% relative humidity using a MOCON instrument. The WVTR was two orders of magnitude smaller than $Al_2O_3$ barriers directly grown on PES substrate without the $TiO_2$ interlayer. Thus, we can consider that the $Al_2O_3/TiO_2$ multi-layer passivation can be one of the most suitable F-OLEDs passivation films.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.55-60
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• 2021

In order to produce wearable displays with high adhesion while maintaining flexible characteristics, the adhesive method using electro plating method was carried out. Laser lift-off (LLO) transcription was also used to remove sapphire substrates from LEDs bonded to fibers. Afterwards, the SEM and EDS data of the sample, which conducted the adhesion method using electro plating, confirmed that copper actually grows through the lattice of the fiber fabric to secure the light source and fiber. The adhesion characteristics of copper were checked using Universal testing machine (UTM). After plating adhesion, the characteristics of the LLO transcription process completed and the LED without the transcription process were compared using probe station. The electroluminescence (EL) according to the enhanced current was measured to check the characteristics of the light source after the process. As the current increases, the temperature rises and the bandgap decreases, so it was confirmed that the spectrum shifted. In addition, the change in the electrical characteristics of the samples according to the radius change is confirmed using probe station. The radius strain also had mechanical strength that copper could withstand bending stress, so the Vf variation was measured below 6%. Based on these results, it is expected that it will be applied to batteries, catalysts, and solar cells that require flexibility as well as wearable displays, contributing to the development of wearable devices.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.79-85
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• 2022

Recently, a smartphone manufactured on a flexible substrate has been released as an electronic device, and research on a stretchable electronic device is in progress. In this paper, a silicon-based stretchable material is made and used as a substrate to implement and evaluate an optical sensor device using oxide semiconductor. To this end, a substrate that stretches well at room temperature was made using a silicone-based solution rubber, and the elongation of 350% of the material was confirmed, and optical properties such as reflectivity, transmittance, and absorbance were measured. Next, since the surface of these materials is hydrophobic, oxygen-based plasma surface treatment was performed to clean the surface and change the surface to hydrophilicity. After depositing an AZO-based oxide film with vacuum equipment, an Ag electrode was formed using a cotton swab or a metal mast to complete the photosensor. The optoelectronic device analyzed the change in current according to the voltage when light was irradiated and when it was not, and the photocurrent caused by light was observed. In addition, the effect of the optical sensor according to the folding was additionally tested using a bending machine. In the future, we plan to intensively study folding (bending) and stretching optical devices by forming stretchable semiconductor materials and electrodes on stretchable substrates.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.83-89
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• 2020

For the past few decades, as part of efforts to protect the environment where fossil fuels, which have been a key energy resource for mankind, are becoming increasingly depleted and pollution due to industrial development, ecofriendly secondary batteries, hydrogen generating energy devices, energy storage systems, and many other new energy technologies are being developed. Among them, the lithium-ion battery (LIB) is considered to be a next-generation energy device suitable for application as a large-capacity battery and capable of industrial application due to its high energy density and long lifespan. However, considering the growing battery market such as eco-friendly electric vehicles and drones, it is expected that a large amount of battery waste will spill out from some point due to the end of life. In order to prepare for this situation, development of a process for recovering lithium and various valuable metals from waste batteries is required, and at the same time, a plan to recycle them is socially required. In this study, we introduce a nanoscale pattern transfer printing (NTP) process of Li2CO3, a representative anode material for lithium ion batteries, one of the strategic materials for recycling waste batteries. First, Li2CO3 powder was formed by pressing in a vacuum, and a 3-inch sputter target for very pure Li2CO3 thin film deposition was successfully produced through high-temperature sintering. The target was mounted on a sputtering device, and a well-ordered Li2CO3 line pattern with a width of 250 nm was successfully obtained on the Si substrate using the NTP process. In addition, based on the nTP method, the periodic Li2CO3 line patterns were formed on the surfaces of metal, glass, flexible polymer substrates, and even curved goggles. These results are expected to be applied to the thin films of various functional materials used in battery devices in the future, and is also expected to be particularly helpful in improving the performance of lithium-ion battery devices on various substrates.