• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.311-319
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• 2016

In this study, an environment-friendly synthetic strategy to process zinc oxide nanocrystals is reported. The biosynthesis method used in this study is simple and cost-effective, with reduced solvent waste via the use of fruit peel extract as a natural ligation agent. The formation of ZnO nanocrystals using a rambutan peel extract was observed in this study. Rambutan peels has the ability to ligate zinc ions as a natural ligation agent, resulting in ZnO nanochain formation due to the presence of an extended polyphenolic system over the whole incubation period. Via transmission electron microscopy, successful formation of zinc oxide nanochains was confirmed. TEM observation revealed that the bioinspired ZnO nanocrystals were spherical and/or hexagonal particles with sizes between 50 and 100 nm.

• 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.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.95-98
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• 2013

The photoluminescence (PT) properties of Al-doped ZnO thin films grown by the sol-gel dip-coating method have been investigated. At 12 K, nine distinct PL peaks were observed at 2.037, 2.592, 2.832, 3.027, 3.177, 3.216, 3.260, 3.303, and 3.354 eV. The deep-level emissions (2.037, 2.592, 2.832, and 3.027 eV) were attributed to native defects. The near-band-edge (NBE) emission peaks at 3.354, 3.303, 3.260, 3.216, and 3.177 eV were attributed to the emission of the neutral-donor-bound excitons ($D^0X$), two-electron satellite (TES), free-to-neutral-acceptors (e,$A^0$), donor-acceptor pairs (DAP), and second-order longitudinal optical (2LO) phonon replicas of the TES (TES-2LO), respectively. According to Haynes' empirical rule, we calculated the energy of a free exciton (FX) to be 3.374 eV. The thermal activation energy for $D^0X$ in the nanocrystalline ZnO thin film was found to be ~25 meV, corresponding to the thermal dissociation energy required for $D^0X$ transitions.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.3093-3098
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• 2010

The core-shell $SnO_2$@AO (A=Ni, Cu, Zn and Mg) films were prepared and the effects of coatings on photovoltaic properties were investigated. Studies on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis and transmission electron microscopy showed the formation of divalent oxides on the surface of $SnO_2$ nanoparticles. It was commonly observed that all the dye-sensitized core-shell films exhibited higher photovoltage than the bare $SnO_2$ film. Transient photovoltage measurements confirmed that the improved photovoltages were related to the decreased time constants for electron recombination.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.193-203
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• 2005

Highly c-axis oriented nanocrystalline ZnO thin films on silica glass substrates were prepared by spin coating-pyrolysis process with a zinc naphthenate precursor. Only the XRD intensity peak of (002) phase was observed for all samples. With an increase in heat treatment temperature, the peak intensity of (002) phase increases. No significant aggregation of particle was present. From scanning probe microscopy analyses, three-dimensional grain growth, which was thought to be due to inhomogeneous substrate surface and c-axis oriented grain growth of the ZnO phase, was independent on heal-treatment temperature. Highly homogeneous surface of the highly-oriented ZnO film was observed at $800^{\circ}C$. All the films exhibited a high transmittance (above 80%) in visible region except film heat treated at $1000^{\circ}C$, and showed a sharp fundamental absorption edge at about $0.38{\sim}0.40{\mu}m$. The estimated energy band gap for all the films were within the range previously reported for films and single crystal. ZnO films, consisting of densely packed grains with smooth surface morphology were obtained by heat treatment at $600^{\circ}C{\sim}800^{\circ}C$, expected to be ideal for practical application, such as transparent conductive film and optical device.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.204.2-204.2
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• 2013

Wide band gap II-VI semiconductors have attracted the interest of many research groups during the past few years due to the possibility of their applications in light-emitting diodes and laser diodes. Among the II-VI semiconductors, ZnO is an important optoelectronic device material for use in the violet and blue regions because of its wide direct band gap (Eg ~3.37 eV) and large exciton binding energy (60 meV). F-doped ZnO (FZO) and undoped ZnO thin films were grown onto quartz substrate by the sol-gel spin-coating method. The doping level in the solution, designated by F/Zn atomic ratio of was varied from 0 to 5 in 1 steps. To investigate the effects of the structure and optical properties of FZO thin films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL). In the XRD, the residual stress, FWHM, bond length, and average grain size were changed with increasing the doping concentration. For the PL spectra, the high INBE/IDLE ratio of the FZO thin films doping concentration at 1 at.% than the other samples.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.58-62
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• 2008

$Ni_{0.4}Zn_{0.4}Cu_{0.2}Fe_2O_4$ ferrite was fabricated by solid stat reaction method and sol-gel method. Because of the drawbacks of each method, we combined these two methods together. We proposed and experimentally verified that nanocrystalline ferrite additive was effective on improving the densification behavior and magnetic properties of NiZnCu ferrites for multilayer chip inductors. The initial permeability of the toroidal core Sample with 20 wt% nanocrystalline ferrite increased from 78.1 to 178.2 as annealing temperature is increased from $880^{\circ}C$ to $920^{\circ}C$. The density, shrinkage and saturation magnetization were increased with increasing annealing temperature, which was attributed to the decrease of additive grain size and increase of sintering density.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1204-1208
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• 2012

A new photoelectrode composed of $Sb_6O_{13}$ nanoparticles with the size of 20-30 nm has been prepared via thermolysis of a colloidal antimony pentoxide tetrahydrate ($Sb_2O_5{\cdot}4H_2O$) suspension. The $Sb_6O_{13}$ electrode showed good semiconducting properties applicable to dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs); the energy band gap was estimated to be $3.05{\pm}0.5$ eV and the position of conduction band edge was close to those of $TiO_2$ and ZnO. The DSSC assembled with the $Sb_6O_{13}$ photoelectrode and a conventional ruthenium-dye (N719) exhibited the overall photo-current conversion efficiency of 0.74% ($V_{oc}$ = 0.76 V, $J_{sc}=1.99\;mAcm{-2}$, fill factor = 0.49) under AM 1.5, $100\;mWcm^{-2}$ illumination.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.774-779
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• 2013

We synthesized the solution processible monodispersed $TiO_2$ crystalline nano-sol with ~ 5 nm in size by sol-gel method. Through the spin-coating of crystalline $TiO_2$ nano-sol at low processing temperature, we could make even blocking interlayer on the rough FTO transparent electrode substrate. The rough FTO surface could be gradually smoothed by the spin-coating of nano-crystalline $TiO_2$ sol based blocking interlayer. The 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 wt% of nanocrystalline $TiO_2$ sol formed 29, 38, 62, and 226 nm-thick of blocking interlayer in present experimental condition, respectively. The 5 and 10 wt% of $TiO_2$ nano-sol could effectively fill up the valley part of bare FTO with 48.7 nm of rms (root mean square) roughness and consequently enabled the ZnO to be grown to vertically aligned one dimensional nanorods on the flattened blocking interlayer/FTO substrate.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.120.2-120.2
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• 2011

The improvement of solar energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency has continued to be an important research area of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The mechanism of DSSCs is based on the injection of electrons from the photoexcited dye into the conduction band of nanocrystalline TiO2 or ZnO. Thus, the electronic structures, such as HOMO, LUMO, and HOMO-LUMO band gaps of dye moleculed in DSSC are deeply related to the electron transfer by photoexcitation and redox potential. Organic dyes, because of their many advantages, such as high molar extinction coefficients, convenience of customized molecular design for desired photophysical and photochemical properties, inexpensiveness with no transition metals contained, and environment-friendliness, are suitable as photosensitizers for DSSC. We believe that practically useful organic dye photosensitizers can be produced by exploiting electron donor/acceptor system with proper length of ${\pi}$-conjugation in a chromophore to control the absorption wavelength and enhance the photovoltaic performance. In this research, We designed and synthesized organic dyes also investigated the photoelectrochemical properties of a series of ionic dyes in DSSCs.