• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.114.1-114.1
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• 2011

Electrical sintering of the front electrode for crystalline silicon solar cells was performed applying a constant DC current to the printed lines. Conducting lines were printed on glass substrate by a drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet printer and silver nanoparticle ink. Specific resistance and microstructure of sintered silver lines and were measured with varying DC current. To find the relation between temperature increase with changing applied current and specific resistance, temperature elevation was also calculated. Sintering process finished within a few milliseconds. Increasing applied DC current, specific resistance decreased and grain size increased after sintering. Achieved minimum specific resistance is approximately 1.7 times higher than specific resistance of the bulk silver.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.119-124
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• 2013

In this study, the two-dimensional transient temperature of printed Ag nanoparticle ink during continuous wave laser sintering was calculated. Ag nanoparticle ink was printed on a glass substrate by inkjet printing. Then, a 532-nm continuous wave laser with different laser intensities was irradiated on the printed Ag nanoparticle ink for 60 s. During laser irradiation, the in-situ specific resistance of the sintered ink was measured. To obtain the transient temperature of the sintered ink during the laser sintering process, a two-dimensional transient heat conduction equation was derived by applying the Wiedemann-Franz law. It was found that the specific resistance of the sintered ink decreased with an increase in the sintering temperature of the printed ink.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.578-578
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• 2012

Graphene, a flat one-atom-thick two-dimensional layer of carbon atoms, is considered to be a promising candidate for nanoelectronics due to its exceptional electronic properties. Most of all, future nanoelectronics such as flexible displays and artificial electronic skins require low cost manufacturing process on flexible substrate to be integrated with high resolutions on large area. The solution based printing process can be applicable on plastic substrate at low temperature and also adequate for fabrication of electronics on large-area. The combination of printed electronics and graphene has allowed for the development of a variety of flexible electronic devices. As the first step of the study, we prepared the gate electrodes by printing onto the gate dielectric layer on PET substrate. We showed the performance of graphene field-effect transistor with electrohydrodynamic (EHD) inkjet-printed Ag gate electrodes.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.453-457
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• 2007

Interest in use of ink-jet printing for pattern-on-demand fabrication of metal interconnects without complicated and wasteful etching process has been on rapid increase. However, ink-jet printing is a wet process and needs an additional thermal treatment such as an annealing process. Since a metal ink is a suspension containing metal nanoparticles and organic capping molecules to prevent aggregation of them, the microstructure of an ink-jet printed metal interconnect 'as dried' can be characterized as a stack of loosely packed nanoparticles. Therefore, during being treated thermally, an inkjet-printed interconnect is likely to evolve a characteristic microstructure, different from that of the conventionally vacuum-deposited metal films. Microstructure characteristics can significantly affect the corresponding electrical and mechanical properties. The characteristics of change in microstructure and electrical resistivity of inkjet-printed silver (Ag) films when annealed isothermally at a temperature between 170 and $240^{\circ}C$ were analyzed. The change in electrical resistivity was described using the first-order exponential decay kinetics. The corresponding activation energy of 0.44 eV was explained in terms of a thermally-activated mechanism, i.e., migration of point defects such as vacancy-oxygen pairs, rather than microstructure evolution such as grain growth or change in porosity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.105-105
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• 2006

IT 산업 및 반도체 산업이 발전함에 따라 초소형, 고집적화 시스템의 요구에 대응하기 위해서 고해상도 및 고정밀의 패턴 구현에 관한 많은 연구가 진행되고 있다. 이러한 연구는 각종 산업제품의 PCB(Printed Circuit Board) 및 디스플레이 장치인 PDP(Plasma Display Panel), LCD(Liquid Crystal Display) 등에 적용되어 널리 응용되고 있다. 현재 널리 사용되는 인쇄 회로 기판은 마스킹 후 선택적 에칭 방식을 적용하여 금속 배선을 형성하는 방식을 적용하고 있다. 이러한 방식은 설계가 변경될 경우 마스크를 다시 제작해야 하는 번거로움이 있어 설계 변경이 용이하지 않고 더욱 길어진 생산시간의 증가로 인하여 생산성 및 집적도가 떨어지게 된다. 따라서 최근에는 이러한 한계를 극복하기 위한 방안이 여러 가지 측면에서 시도되고 있으며, 그 중에서도 Inkjet Printing 기술에 대한 관심이 증가하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 Inkjet Printing 방식을 적용하여 금속 배선을 형성하고 선폭과 두께의 오차를 줄여 배선의 Tolerance 를 개선할 수 있는 방안을 제안하였다. Inkjet Printing 방식을 이용한 기존의 금속 배선 형성은 고해상도의 DPI(Dot Per Inch)에서 잉크 액적이 뭉치는 Bulge 현상이 발생되어 원하는 형상 및 배선의 폭을 구현하는데 어려움이 있었다. Bulge 현상은 배선의 불균일성을 야기할 뿐만 아니라 근접한 배선의 간섭에도 영향을 미처 금속 배선의 기능을 할 수 없는 단점을 발생시킨다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 이러한 Bulge 현상을 줄이고 배선간의 간섭을 방지하여 원하는 배선을 용이하게 형성할 수 있는 순차적 인쇄 방식을 적용하였다. 본 연구에서는 노즐직경 35um 의 Inkjet Head 와 나노 Ag 입자 잉크를 사용하여 Glass 표면 위에 배선을 형성하고 배선의 폭과 두께를 측정하였다. 또한 순차적 인쇄 방식을 적용하여 700DPI 이상의 고해상도에서 나타날 수 있는 Bulge 현상이 감소하였음을 관찰하였으며 금속 배선의 Tolerance를 10%내외로 유지할 수 있음을 확인하였다.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.173-176
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• 2014

We have investigated the seed layer formation of front side contact using the inkjet printing process. Conductive silver ink was printed on textured Si wafers with 80 nm thick $SiN_x$ anti reflection coating (ARC) layers and thickened by light induced plating (LIP). The inkjet printable sliver inks were specifically formulated for inkjet printing on these substrates. Also, a novel method to prepare nano-sized glass frits by the sol-gel process with particle sizes around 5 nm is presented. Furthermore, dispersion stability of the formulated ink was measured using a Turbiscan. By implementing these glass frits, it was found that a continuous and uniform seed layer with a line width of $40{\mu}m$ could be formed by a inkjet printing process. We also investigated the contact resistance between the front contact and emitter using the transfer length model (TLM). On an emitter with the sheet resistance of $60{\Omega}/sq$, a specific contact resistance (${\rho}_c$) below $10m{\Omega}{\cdot}cm^2$ could be achieved at a peak firing temperature around $700^{\circ}C$. In addition, the correlation between the contact resistance and interface microstructures were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We found that the added glass particles act as a very effective fire through agent, and Ag crystallites are formed along the interface glass layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.293.1-293.1
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• 2016

Various materials including conductive, dielectric, and semi-conductive materials, constitute suitable candidates for printed electronics. Metal nanoparticles (e.g. Ag, Cu, Ni, Au) are typically used in conductive ink. However, easily oxidized metals, such as Cu, must be processed at low temperatures and as such, photonic sintering has gained significant attention as a new low-temperature processing method. This method is based on the principle of selective heating of a strongly absorbent film, without light-source-induced damage to the transparent substrate. However, Cu nanoparticles used in inks are susceptible to the growth of a native copper-oxide layer on their surface. Copper-oxide-nanoparticle ink subjected to a reduction mechanism has therefore been introduced in an attempt to achieve long-term stability and reliability. In this work, a flash-light sintering process was used for the reduction of an inkjet-printed Cu(II)O thin film to a Cu film. Using a photographic lighting instrument, the intensity of the light (or intense pulse light) was controlled by the charged power (Ws). The resulting changes in the structure, as well as the optical and electrical properties of the light-irradiated Cu(II)O films, were investigated. A Cu thin film was obtained from Cu(II)O via photo-thermal reduction at 2500 Ws. More importantly, at one shot of 3000 Ws, a low sheet resistance value ($0.2527{\Omega}/sq.$) and a high resistivity (${\sim}5.05-6.32{\times}10^{-8}{\Omega}m$), which was ~3.0-3.8 times that of bulk Cu was achieved for the ~200-250-nm-thick film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.53-53
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• 2010

The development of synthetic pathway to produce a highly yield nanoparticles is an important aspect of industrial technology. Herein, we report a simple, rapid approach to synthesize organic-soluble Cu and Ag nanoparticles in colloidal method for the application in a conductive pattern using inkjet printing. The silver nanoparticles have been synthesized in highly concentrated organic phase. The Cu nanoparticles have been synthesized by the reducing of the copper oxide materials using acid molecules in high concentrated organic phase. Their sintering and electric conductivity properties were investigated by melting process between $200^{\circ}C$ and $250^{\circ}C$ for application to printed electronics.