• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.17-17
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• 2009

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have attracted much attention as promising materials for transparent conducting films (TCFs), thanks to their superior electrical conductivity, high mechanical strength, and complete flexibility. The CNT-based TCFs can be used in a variety of application fields as flexible, transparent electrodes, including touch panel screens, flexible electronics, transparent heaters, etc. First of all, this study investigated the effect of a variety of surfactants on the dispersion of SWCNTs in an aqueous solution. Following the optimization of the dispersion by surfactants, flexible TCFs were fabricated by spraying the CNT suspension onto poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrates. The sheet resistances of the TCFs having different surfactants were investigated with treatment in nitric acid ($HNO_3$) whose concentration and period of treatment time were varied. It seems that the $HNO_3$ removes the surfactants from and is simultaneously doped into the SWCNT network, reducing the contact resistance between CNTs. TCFs were characterized by UV-VIS spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and four-point probe.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.254-254
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• 2009

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have attracted much attention as promising materials for transparent conducting films (TCFs), thanks to their superior electrical conductivity, high mechanical strength, and complete flexibility. The CNT-based TCFs can be used in a variety of application fields as flexible, transparent electrodes, including touch panel screens, flexible electronics, transparent heaters, etc. First of all, this study investigated the effect of a variety of surfactants on the dispersion of SWCNTs in an aqueous solution. Following the optimization of the dispersion by surfactants, flexible TCFs were fabricated by spraying the CNT suspension onto poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrates. The sheet resistances of the TCFs having different surfactants were investigated with treatment in nitric acid ($HNO_3$) whose concentration and period of treatment time were varied. It seems that the $HNO_3$ removes the surfactants from and is simultaneously doped into the SWCNT network, reducing the contact resistance between CNTs. TCFs were characterized by UV-VIS spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and four-point probe.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 2014

Flexible transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) have recently attracted a great deal of attention owing to rapid advances in flexible electronic devices, such as flexible displays, flexible photovoltanics, and e-papers. As the performance and reliability of flexible electronics are critically affected by the quality of TCE films, it is imperative to develop TCE films with low resistivity and high transparency as well as high flexibility. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been the most dominant transparent conducting material due to its high optical transparency and electrical conductivity. However, ITO is susceptible to cracking and delamination when it is bent or deformed. Therefore, various types of flexible TCEs, such as carbon nanotube, conducting polymers, graphene, metal mesh, Ag nanowires (NWs), and metal mesh have been extensively investigated. Among several options to replace ITO film, Ag NWs and metal mesh have been suggested as the promising candidate for flexible TCEs. In this paper, we focused on Ag NWs and metal mesh, and summarized the current development status of Ag NWs and metal mesh. The several critical issues such as high contact resistance and haze are discussed, and newly developed technologies to resolve these issues are also presented. In particular, the flexibility and durability of Ag NWs and metal mesh was compared with ITO electrode.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2014

In this study, we investigate the effects of corona-discharge pre-treatment on the properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) which are used as flexible transparent electrodes. The CNTs are deposited on PET (polyethylene terephthalate) substrates using a spray coating method. Prior to the deposition of CNTs, the PET substrates are corona-treated by varying the feeding directions of the PET substrate and the numbers of treatments. The variations in the surface morphologies and roughnesses of the PET substrates due to corona-treatment are characterized via atomic force microscopy (AFM). Dynamic contact angles (DCAs) of the corona-treated PET substrates are measured and analyzed as functions of the treatment conditions. Also, the sheet resistances and visible-range transmittances of the CNTs deposited on PET substrates are measured before and after bending test. The experimental results obtained in this study provide strong evidences that the adhesive forces between CNTs and PET substrates can be substantially enhanced by corona-discharge pretreatment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.175-175
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• 2010

Transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films are widely used as transparent conducting thin film material for application in various fields such as solar cells, optoelectronic devices, heat mirrors and gas sensors, etc. Recently the increased utilization of many transparent electrodes has accelerated the development of inexpensive TCO materials. Indium tin oxide (ITO) film is well-known for TCO materials because of its low resistivity, but there is disadvantage that it is too expensive. ZnO film is cheaper than ITO but it shows thermally poor stability. On the contrary, antimony-doped tin oxide films (ATO) are more stable than TCO films such as Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and ITO. Moreover, SnO2 film shows the best thermal and chemical stability, low cost and mechanical durability except the poor conductivity. However, annealing is proved to improve the conductivity of ATO film. Therefore, in this work, antimony (6 wt%) doped tin oxide films to improve the conductivity were deposited on 7059 corning glass by RF magnetron sputtering method for the application to transparent electrodes. In general, of all TCO films, glass is the most commonly selected substrate. However, for future development in flexible devices, glass is limited by its intrinsic inflexibility. In this study, we report the growth and properties of antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) films deposited on PES flexible substrate by using RF magnetron sputtering. The optimization process was performed varying the sputtering parameters, such as RF power and working pressure, and parameter effect on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the ATO films were investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.314-314
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• 2013

Recently, flexibility is one of the hottest issues in the field of electronic devices. For flexible displays or solar cells, a development of transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) with flexibility, bendability and foldability is an essential element. Hundreds of nanometers indium-tin-oxide (ITO) films have been widely used and commercialized as a transparent electrode, but their brittleness make them difficulty to apply flexible electronics. Many researchers have been studying for flexible TCEs such as a few layers of graphene sheets, carbon nanotube networks, conductive polymer films and combinations among them. Although gained flexibility, their transmittance and resistivity have not reached those of commercialized ITO films. Metal grids electrode cannot act as TCEs only, but they can be used to lower the resistance of TCEs with few losses of transmittance. However, the possibility of device shortage will be rise at the devices with metal grids because a surface flatness of TCEs may be deteriorated when metal grids are introduced using conventional methods. In our research, we have developed hybrid TCEs, which combined tens of nanometers ITO film and metal grids which are embedded in flexible substrate. They show $13{\Omega}$/${\Box}f$ sheet resistance with 94% of transmittance. Moreover, the sheet resistance was maintained up to 1 mm of bending radius. Also, we have verified that flexible organic light emitting diodes and organic solar cells with the TCEs showed similar performances compared to commercial ITO (on glass substrate) devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.39-39
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• 2010

There have been many efforts to utilize the outstanding properties of graphene for macroscopic applications such as transparent conducting films useful for flexible/stretchable electronics. However, the lack of efficient synthesis, transfer, and doping methods limited the scale and the quality needed for the practical production of graphene films. In this presentation, we introduce ultra-large scale (~30 inch) synthesis and roll-to-roll transfer of graphene films showing excellent electrical and physical properties suitable for practical applications. Considering the outstanding scalability/processibility of roll-to-roll and CVD methods and the extraordinary flexibility/conductivity of graphene films, we expect the commercial production and application electrodes replacing the use of ITO can be realized in near future.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.54-59
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• 2023

Silver nanowire-based transparent electrodes are very attractive as a next-generation flexible and transparent electrode that can replace ITO-based flexible electrodes because they have excellent conductivity, transmittance and mechanical flexibility. However, weak understanding of the silver nanowire solution for the fabrication of silver nanowire-based transparent electrodes often cause abnormal operation of the electrical device or peeling problem of the electrode films when applied to electronic devices. Here, we studied a Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose (HPMC) adhesion promoter, which is one of the additives for silver nanowire solution, to improve the understanding of silver nanowire solution. In detail, it is characterized how the HPMC changes the properties of silver nanowire solution and silver nanowire film, which is fabricated with silver nanowire solution including the HPMC adhesion promoter. As the characteristics of solution, polar surface tension and dispersive surface tension were measured. As the film characteristics, surface energy, surface morphology, silver nanowire density, and sheet resistance were analyzed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2015.11a
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• pp.165-165
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• 2015

유연 폴리머 기판상에 광 투과 특성을 개선한 초박형 금속 필름 기반 투명전극 소재를 개발하였다. 본 유연 투명전극의 높은 광 투과성과 전도성으로부터 유연소자의 성능향상을 검증하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2014.11a
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• pp.57-57
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• 2014

유연 폴리머 기판 상에 광 투과 특성을 기존 전극 대비 혁신적으로 개선한 2차원, 3차원 산화물 나노 구조 전극을 개발하였다. 본 유연투명전극의 높은 광 투과 특성으로 인한 유연소자의 성능 향상을 유연 유기 태양전지 제조를 통해 입증하였다.