• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
• /
• v.53 no.6
• /
• pp.312-321
• /
• 2020

Morphology of porous cobalt electro-deposits was systematically investigated as functions of cobalt precursors in the plating bath and applied cathodic current density with a special focus on cobalt nano-rod formation. It was proved that the concentration of cobalt precursor plays little effect on the morphology of cobalt electro-deposits at relatively low plating current density while it significantly affects the morphology with increasing plating current density. Such a dependence was discussed in terms of the kinetics of two competitive reactions of cobalt reduction and hydrogen evolution. Cobalt nano-rod structure was created at specific ranges of cobalt precursor content and applied cathodic current density, and its diameter and length varied with plating time without notable formation of side branches which is usually found during dendrite formation. Specifically, the nano-rod length was preferentially increased in relative short plating time (<15 s), resulting in higher aspect ratio of nano-rod with plating time. Whereas, both the nano-rod length and diameter were increased nearly at the same level in a prolonged plating time, making the aspect ratio unchanged. From the analysis of crystal structure, it was confirmed that the cobalt nano-rod preferentially grew in the form of single crystal on a dense poly-crystalline cobalt thin film initially formed on the substrate.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.451-460
• /
• 2019

Thin film composite membranes incorporated with nano-sized hydrophilic zeolite -A were successfully prepared via interfacial polymerization (IP) on porous blend PES/PAN support for water desalination. The thin film nanocomposite membranes were characterized by SEM, contact angle and performance test with 7000 ppm NaCl solution at 7bar. The results showed that the optimum zeolite loading amount was determined to be 0.1wt% with permeate flux 29LMH.NaCl rejection was improved from 69% to 92% compared to the pristine polyamide membrane where the modified PA surface was more selective than that of the pristine PA. In addition, there was no significant change in the permeate flux of the thin film nanocomposite membrane compared with that of the pristine PA in spite of the formation of the dense polyamide layer. The stability of the polyamide layer was investigated for 15 days and the optimized membrane presented the highest durability and stability.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.309-321
• /
• 2015

We report in this study the synthesis of mixed matrix reverse osmosis membranes by interfacial polymerization (IP) of thin film nanocomposite (TFNC) on porous polysulfone supports (PS). This paper investigates the synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) using the sol-gel processing technique and evaluates the performance of mixed matrix membranes reached by these aerogel NPs. Aqueous m-phenyl diamine (MPD) and organic trimesoyl chloride (TMC)-NPs mixture solutions were used in the IP process. The reaction of MPD and TMC at the interface of PS substrates resulted in the formation of the thin film composite (TFC). NPs of ZnO with a size of about 25 nm were used for the fabrication of the TFNC membranes. These membranes were characterized and evaluated in comparison with neat TFC ones. Their performances were evaluated based on the water permeability and salt rejection. Experimental results indicated that the NPs improved membrane performance under optimal concentration of NPs. By changing the content of the filler, better hydrophilicity was obtained; the contact angle was decreased from $74^{\circ}$ to $32^{\circ}$. Also, the permeate water flux was increased from 26 to 49 L/m2.h when the content of NPs is 0.1 (wt.%) with the maintaining of lower salt passage of 1%.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.41 no.12 s.271
• /
• pp.900-906
• /
• 2004

Solid oxide fuel cells have a limitation in their low-temperature application due to the low ionic conductivity of electrolyte materials and difficulties in thin film formation on porous gas diffusion layer. These problems can be solved by improvement of ionic conductivity through controlled nanostructure of electrolyte and adopting nanoporous electrodes as substrates which have homogeneous submicron pore size and highly flattened surface. In this study, ultra-thin oxide films having submicron thickness without gas leakage are deposited on nanoporous substrates. By oxidation of metal thin films deposited onto nanoporous anodic alumina substrates with pore size of $20nm{\sim}200nm$ using dc-magnetron sputtering at room temperature, ultra-thin and dense ionic conducting oxide films with submicron thickness are realized. The specific material properties of the thin films including gas permeation, grain/gran boundaries formation, change of crystalline structure/microstructure by phase transition are investigated for optimization of ultra thin film deposition process.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.275-281
• /
• 2009

The microstructure of copper films prepared by a sputtering apparatus, which was fabricated to enhance the shadowing effect, was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. Black copper films were deposited on copper wires at an Ar pressure of 10 Pa. The black films had an extremely porous structure composed of separated columns. This structure is quite similar to that of black titanium films prepared by cylindrical magnetron sputtering. These results suggest that the porous structure composed of separated columns is easily formed for metal films by enhancing the shadowing effect.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.46 no.4
• /
• pp.429-435
• /
• 2009

In this study, we investigated microstructure and the CO gas sensing properties of Ag-CuO-$SnO_2$ thin films prepared by co-evaporation and subsequently thermal oxidation at air atmosphere. The sensitivity of a Cu-Sn films, thermally oxidized at $600^{\circ}C$, is strongly affected by the amount of Cu. At Cu:7 wt%-Sn:93 wt%, the film exhibited a maximum sensitivity of ${\sim}2.3$ to CO gas of 1000 ppm at $300^{\circ}C$. In contrast, the sensitivity of a Sn-Ag film did not change significantly with the amount of Ag. An enhanced sensitivity of ${\sim}3.7$ was observed in the film with a composition of Ag:3 wt%-Cu:4 wt%-Sn:93 wt%, when thermally oxidized at $600^{\circ}C$. In addition, this thin film shows a response time of ${\sim}80$ sec and a recovery time of ${\sim}450$ sec to 1000 ppm CO gas. The results demonstrate that the CO sensitivity of the Ag-CuO-$SnO_2$ thin films may be closely associated with coexistence of $SnO_2$ and SnO phase, decrease in average particle size, and a porous microstructure. We also suggest that co-evaporation and followed by thermal oxidation is a very simple and effective method to prepare oxide gas sensor thin films.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.35-39
• /
• 2015

Polyvinylchloride (PVC) thin films having a microporous structure could be prepared by using the solubility difference in solvents. PVC thin film with a water contact angle of $150^{\circ}$ or more was obtained from the PVC solution consisting of the mixture of tetrahydrofuran as a solvent and propanol as a non-solvent. In the drying process of dip-coated PVC film, the increase of drying temperature reduced the tendency of roughened surface, which led the decrease of surface hydrophobicity. As the addition of propanol in the solution with 1 wt% PVC increased, the uniformity of surface roughness was improved. In the case of oxygen plasma treatments, even though the surface structure of PVC thin film was not notably changed, the surface property of the film was changed from the super-hydrophobicity to hydrophilicity as a function of the plasma exposing time.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.11a
• /
• pp.353-353
• /
• 2008

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are attractive for field emitter because of their outstanding electrical, mechanical, and chemical properties. Several applications using CNTs as field emitters have been demonstrated such as field emission display (FED), backlight unit (BLU), and X-ray source. In this study, we fabricated a CNT cathode using transparent ultra-thin CNT film. First, CNT aqueous solution was prepared by ultrasonically dispersing purified single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in deionized water with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). To obtain the CNT film, the CNT solution in a milliliter or even several tens of micro-litters was deposited onto a porous alumina membrane through vacuum filtration process. Thereafter, the alumina membrane was solvated by the 3 M NaOH solution and the floating CNT film was easily transferred to an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) glass substrate of $0.5\times0.5cm^2$ with a film mask. The transmittance of as-prepared ultra-thin CNT films measured by UV-Vis spectrophotometer was 68~97%, depending on the amount of CNTs dispersed in an aqueous solution. Roller activation, which is a essential process to improve the field emission characteristics of CNT films, increased the UV-Vis transmittance up to 93~98%. This study presents SEM morphology of CNT emitters and their field emission properties according to the concentration of CNTs in an aqueous solutions. Since the ultra-thin CNT emitters prepared from the solutions show a high peak current density of field emission comparable to that of the paste-base CNT emitters and do not contain outgassing sources such as organic binders, they are considered to be very promising for small-size-but-high-end applications including X-ray sources and microwave power amplifiers.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.325-329
• /
• 2009

Titanium dioxide thin films were fabricated as hydrogen sensors and its sensing properties were tested. The titanium was deposited on a $SiO_2$/Si substrate by the DC magnetron sputtering method and was oxidized at an optimized temperature of $850^{\circ}C$ in air. The titanium film originally had smooth surface morphology, but the film agglomerated to nano-size grains when the temperature reached oxidation temperature where it formed titanium oxide with a rutile structure. The oxide thin film formed by grains of tens of nanometers size also showed many short cracks and voids between the grains. The response to 1% hydrogen gas was ${\sim}2{\times}10^6$ at the optimum sensing temperature of $200^{\circ}C$, and ${\sim}10^3$ at room temperature. This extremely high sensitivity of the thin film to hydrogen was due partly to the porous structure of the nano-sized sensing particles. Other sensor properties were also examined.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.658-658
• /
• 2013

Graphene is an attractive material for various device applications due to great electrical properties and chemical properties. However, lack of band gap is significant hurdle of graphene for future electrical device applications. In the past few years, several methods have been attempted to open and tune a band gap of graphene. For example, researchers try to fabricate graphene nanoribbon (GNR) using various templates or unzip the carbon nanotubes itself. However, these methods generate small driving currents or transconductances because of the large amount of scattering source at edge of GNRs. At 2009, Bai et al. introduced graphene nanomesh (GNM) structures which can open the band gap of large area graphene at room temperature with high current. However, this method is complex and only small area is possible. For practical applications, it needs more simple and large scale process. Herein, we introduce a photosensitive graphene device fabrication using CdSe QD coated nano-porous graphene (NPG). In our experiment, NPG was fabricated by thin film anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) film as an etching mask. First of all, we transfer the AAO on the graphene. And then, we etch the graphene using O2 reactive ion etching (RIE). Finally, we fabricate graphene device thorough photolithography process. We can control the length of NPG neckwidth from AAO pore widening time and RIE etching time. And we can increase size of NPG as large as 2 $cm^2$. Thin CdSe QD layer was deposited by spin coatingprocess. We carried out NPG structure by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). And device measurements were done by Keithley 4200 SCS with 532 nm laser beam (5 mW) irradiation.