• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.226-226
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• 2013

Si is a dominant solar material, which is the second most abundant element in the earth giving a benefit in the aspect in cost with low toxicity. However, the inherent limit of Si has an indirect band gap of 1.1 eV resulting in the limited optical absorption. Therefore, a critical issue has been raised to increase the utilization of the incident light into the Si absorber. The enhancement of light absorption is a crucial to improve the performances and thus relieves the cost burden of Si photovoltaics. For the optical aspect, an efficient design of a front surface, where the incident light comes in, has been intensively investigated to improve the performance of photon absorption. Lambertian light trapping can be attained when the light active surface is ideally rough to increase the optical length by about 50 compared to a planar substrate. This suggests that an efficient design may reduce thickness of the Si absorber from the conventional 100~300 ${\mu}m$ to less than 3 ${\mu}m$. Theoretically, a hole-array structure satisfies an equivalent efficiency of c-Si with only one-twelfth mass and one-sixth thickness. Various approaches have been applied to improve the incident light utilization in a Si absorber using textured structures, periodic gratings, photonic crystals, and nanorod arrays. We have designed hole and pillar structured Si absorbers. Four-different Si absorbers have been simultaneously fabricated on an identical Si wafer with hole arrays or pillar arrays at a fixed depth of 2 ${\mu}m$. We have found that the significant enhanced solar cell performances both for the hole arrayed and pillar arrayed Si absorbers compared to that of a planar Si wafer resulting from the effective improvement in the quantum efficiencies.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.375-378
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• 2018

Conductive and dielectric SiC are fabricated using electroless plating of Ni-Fe films on SiC chopped fibers to obtain lightweight and high-strength microwave absorbers. The electroless plating of Ni-Fe films is achieved using a two-step process of surface sensitizing and metal plating. The complex permeability and permittivity are measured for the composite specimens with the metalized SiC chopped fibers dispersed in a silicone rubber matrix. The original non-coated SiC fibers exhibit considerable dielectric losses. The complex permeability spectrum does not change significantly with the Ni-Fe coating. Moreover, dielectric constant is sensitively increased with Ni-Fe coating, owing to the increase of the space charge polarization. The improvements in absorption capability (lower reflection loss and small matching thickness) are evident with Ni-Fe coating on SiC fibers. For the composite SiC fibers coated with Ni-Fe thin films, a -35 dB reflection loss is predicted at 7.6 GHz with a matching thickness of 4 mm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 2006.09b
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• pp.1213-1214
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• 2006

The synthesis of silver coated iron base alloy (Sendust : Fe-Si-Al) powder having the both effects of shielding and suppressing of electromagnetic wave was studied. Depending on thickness of silver coating layer, the electromagnetic properties of the dispersed particles complexed with organic binder were examined. It is proposed that the silver coated sendust flake powders with controlled electrical properties and thickness can be used as thin microwave absorbers in quasi-microwave frequency band.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.115-118
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• 2017

Highly photosensitive and wide bandgap amorphous silicon oxide (a-$SiO_x$:H) films were developed at low temperature ranges ($100{\sim}150^{\circ}C$) with employing plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition by optimizing $H_2/SiH_4$ gas ratio and $CO_2$ flow. Photosensitivity more than $10^5$ and wide bandgap (1.81~1.85 eV) properties were used for making the a-$SiO_x$:H thin film solar cells, which exhibited a high open circuit voltage of 0.987 V at the substrate temperature of $100^{\circ}C$. In addition, a power conversion efficiency of 6.87% for the cell could be improved up to 7.77% by employing a new n-type nc-$SiO_x$:H/ZnO:Al/Ag triple back-reflector that offers better short circuit currents in the thin film photovoltaic devices.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.120-125
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• 2012

Daegu Solar Power Tower Plant of a 200 kW thermal capacity uses an open air receiver. An air receiver is generally based on the volumetric receiver concept with porous ceramic absorbers. Because absorber material is important in the volumetric receiver, ceramic materials with excellent thermal conductivity, high solar absorptivity and good thermal stability have been researched. KIER also developed SiC honeycomb absorber modules and evaluated performance of the modules at the KIER solar furnace. For performance evaluation, we made an open volumetric receiver containing the modules and measured the outlet temperature and the efficiency. It is demonstrated that performance of the KIER absorber is comparable to that of a reference absorber developed by DLR.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.62-66
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• 2009

The soft magnetic FeSiCr were processed the ball-mill for 30 hours and the shape of FeSiCr particles was changed from sphere to flake type, which was observed using scanning electron microscope. The complex permittivity and permeability spectra and reflection loss of FeSiCr-rubber composite was measured using Network Analyzer in order to investigate the relationship between the microwave absorption and the material constants. The matching frequency shifted toward lower frequency range with microwave absorber thickness, and microwave absorber with FeSiCr-rubber composite showed a maxium reflection loss of -8.3 dB at 1.86 GHz for a 1.3 mm thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.70-70
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• 2013

As the costs of carbon-footprinetd fuels grow continuously and simultaneously atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases, solar fuels are receiving growing attention as alternative clean energy carriers. These fuels include molecular hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide produced from water, and hydrocarbons converted from carbon dioxide. For high efficiency solar fuel production, not only light absorbers (oxide semiconductors, Si, inorganic complexes, etc) should absorb most sunlight, but also charge separation and interfacial charge transfers need to occur efficiently. With this in mind, this talk will introduce the fundamentals of solar fuel production and artificial photosynthesis, and then discuss in detail on photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting and CO2 conversion. This talk largely divides into two section: PEC water oxidation and PEC CO2 reduction. The former is very important for proton-coupled electron transfer to CO2. For this oxidation, a variety of oxide semiconductors have been tested including TiO2, ZnO, WO3, BiVO4, and Fe2O3. Although they are essentially capable of oxidizing water into molecular oxygen, the efficiency is very low primarily because of high overpotentials and slow kinetics. This challenge has been overcome by coupling with oxygen evolving catalysts (OECs) and/or doping donor elements. In the latter, surface-modified p-Si electrodes are fabricated to absorb visible light and catalyze the CO2 reduction. For modification, metal nanoparticles are electrodeposited on the p-Si and their PEC performance is compared.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.261-264
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• 2007

The electromagnetic wave (EM) absorption properties of various particle size have been investigated in a sheet-type absorber using the $Fe_{73}Si_{16}B_{7}Nb_{3}Cu_{1}$ alloy powder. With decreasing the average particle size, the complex permeability (${\mu}_{r}$) and permittivity (${\varepsilon}_{r}$) increased and the matching frequency is shifted toward lower frequency. The fabricated EM wave absorbers showed permeability $2{\sim}6$, permittivity $17{\sim}23$ for a $-325{\sim}+400$ mesh sample, and the calculated power absorption was as high as 80% in the frequency range over 2 GHz.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.532-541
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• 2019

Information and communication technologies are developing rapidly as IC chip size becomes smaller and information processing becomes faster. With this development, digital circuit technology is being widely applied to mobile phones, wireless LANs, mobile terminals, and digital communications, in which high frequency range of GHz is used. In high-density electronic circuits, issues of noise and EMC(Electro-Magnetic Compatibility) arising from cross talk between interconnects or devices should be solved. In this study, sheet-type electromagnetic wave absorbers that cause electromagnetic wave attenuation are fabricated using composites based on soft magnetic metal powder and silicon rubber to solve the problem of electromagnetic waves generated in wireless communication products operating at the frequency range of 2.4 GHz. Sendust(Fe-Si-Al) and carbonyl iron(Fe-C) were used as soft magnetic metals, and their concentrations and sheet thicknesses were varied. Using soft magnetic metal powder, a sheet is fabricated to exhibit maximum electromagnetic attenuation in the target frequency band, and a value of 34.2dB(99.9 % absorption) is achieved at the target frequency.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.241-247
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• 2015

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation-induced loss of dermal extracellular matrix is associated with skin photoaging. Recent studies demonstrated that keratinocyte-releasable stratifin (SFN) plays a critical role in skin collagen metabolism by inducing matrix metalloproteinase 1 (MMP1) expression in target fibroblasts. In the present study, we examined whether SFN released from UVB-irradiated epidermal keratinocytes increases MMP1 release from dermal fibroblasts, and whether these events are affected by p-coumaric acid (p-CA), a natural phenolic compound with UVB-shielding and antioxidant properties. HaCaT cells were exposed to UVB in the absence and presence of p-CA, and the conditioned medium was used to stimulate fibroblasts in medium transfer experiments. The cells and media were analyzed to determine the expressions/releases of SFN and MMP1. UVB exposure increased SFN release from keratinocytes into the medium. The conditioned medium of UVB-irradiated keratinocytes increased MMP1 release from fibroblasts. The depletion of SFN using a siRNA rendered the conditioned medium of UVB-irradiated keratinocytes ineffective at stimulating fibroblasts to release MMP1. p-CA mitigated UVB-induced SFN expression in keratinocytes, and attenuated the MMP1 release by fibroblasts in medium transfer experiments. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that the use of UV absorbers such as p-CA would reduce UV-induced SFN-centered signaling events involved in skin photoaging.