• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.52-52
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• 2018

Only approximately 30% of fossil fuel energy is used; therefore, it is desirable to utilize the huge amounts of waste energy. Thermoelectric (TE) materials that convert heat into electrical power are a promising energy technology. The TE materials can be formed either as thin films or as bulk semiconductors. Generally, thin-film TE materials have low energy conversion rates due to their thinness compared to that in bulk. However, an advantage of a thin-film TE material is that the efficiency can be smartly engineered by controlling the nanostructure and composition. Especially nanostructured TE thin films are useful for mitigating heating problems in highly integrated microelectronic devices by accurately controlling the temperature. Hence, there is a rising interest in thin-film TE devices. These devices have been extensively investigated. It is demonstrated that transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors (TAOS) can be excellent thermoelectric (TE) materials, since their thermal conductivity (${\kappa}$) through a randomly disordered structure is quite low, while their electrical conductivity and carrier mobility (${\mu}$) are high, compared to crystalline semiconductors through the first-principles calculations and the various measurements for the amorphous In-Zn-O (a-IZO) thin film. The calculated phonon dispersion in a-IZO shows non-linear phonon instability, which can prevent the transport of phonon. The a-IZO was measured to have poor ${\kappa}$ and high electrical conductivity compared to crystalline $In_2O_3:Sn$ (c-ITO). These properties show that the TAOS can be an excellent thin-film transparent TE material. It is suggested that the TAOS can be employed to mitigate the heating problem in the transparent display devices.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.1155-1159
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• 1999

Thin film solar cells on a glass/$SnO_2$ substrate with p-SiC/i-Si/n-Si heterojunction structures were fabricated using a plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition system. The photovoltaic properties of the solar cells were examined with varying the gas phase composition, x=$CH_4/\;(SiH_4+CH_4)$, during the deposition of the p-SiC layer. In the range of x=0~0.4, the efficiency of solar cell increased because of the increased band gap of the p-SiC window layer. Further increase in the gas phase composition, however, led to a decrease in the cell efficiency probably due to in the increased composition mismatch at the p-SiC/i-Si layers. As a result, the efficiency of a glass/$SnO_2$/p-SiC/i-SiC/i-Si/n-Si/Ag thin film solar cell with $1cm^2$ area was 8.6% ($V_{oc}$=0.85V, $J_{sc}$=16.42mA/$cm^2$, FF=0.615) under 100mW/$cm^2$ light intensity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.434-436
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• 2013

Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) was substitutes of the SnO2:F films on soda lime glass substrate in the photovoltaic devices such as CIGS, CdTe and DSSC due to good properties and low cost. However, it was reported that the electrical resistivity of GZO is unstable above $300^{\circ}C$ in air atmosphere. To improve thermal stability of GZO thin films at high temperature above $300^{\circ}C$ an $TiO_2$ thin film was deposited on the top of GZO thin films as a barrier layer by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) method. $TiO_2$ thin films were deposited at various thicknesses from 25 nm to 100 nm. Subsequently, these films were annealed at temperature of $300^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$, $500^{\circ}C$ in air atmosphere for 20 min. The XRD measurement results showed all the films had a preferentially oriented ( 0 0 2 ) peak, and the intensity of ( 0 0 2 ) peak nearly did not change both GZO (300 nm) single layer and $TiO_2$ (50 nm)/GZO (300 nm) double layer. The resistivity of GZO (300 nm) single layer increased from $7.6{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}m$ (RT) to $7.7{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}m$ ($500^{\circ}C$). However, in the case of the $TiO_2$ (50 nm)/GZO (300 nm) double layer, resistivity showed small change from $7.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}m$ (RT) to $5.2{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}m$ ($500^{\circ}C$). Meanwhile, the average transmittance of all the films exceeded 80% in the visible spectrum, which suggests that these films will be suitable for photovoltaic devices.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.62-64
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• 2015

We have investigated zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin films under various silicon ratios. ZTO TFTs were fabricated by solution processing with the bottom gate structure. Furthermore, annealing process was performed at different temperatures in various annealing conditions, such as air, vacuum and wet ambient. Completed fabrication of ZTO TFT, and the performance of TFT has been compared depending on the annealing conditions by measuring the transfer curve. In addition, structure in ZTO thin films has been investigated by X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD) and Scanning electron microscope (SEM). It is confirmed that the electrical performance of ZTO TFTs are improved by adopting optimized annealing conditions. Optimized annealing condition has been found for obtaining high mobility.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.141-143
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• 2017

Novel structured thin film transistors (TFTs) of amorphous silicon zinc tin oxide (a-SZTO) were designed and fabricated with a thin metal layer between the source and drain electrodes. A SZTO channel was annealed at $500^{\circ}C$. A Ti/Au electrode was used on the SZTO channel. Metals are deposited between the source and drain in this novel structured TFTs. The mobility of the was improved from $14.77cm^2/Vs$ to $35.59cm^2/Vs$ simply by adopting the novel structure without changing any other processing parameters, such as annealing condition, sputtering power or processing pressure. In addition, stability was improved under the positive bias thermal stress and negative bias thermal stress applied to the novel structured TFTs. Finally, this novel structured TFT was observed to be less affected by back-channel effect.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.456-460
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• 1999

Transparent conducting tin (IV) oxide thin films have been studies and developed for the electrode materials of solar cell substrate. Fabrication of tin oxide thin films by sol-gel method is process development of lower cost photovoltaic solar cell system. The research is focused on the establishment of process condition and development of precursor. The precursor solution was made of tin isopropoxide dissolved in isopropyl alcohol. The hydrolysis rate was controlled by addition of triethanolamine. Dip and spin coating technique were applied to coat tin oxide on borosilicate glass. The resistivity of the thin film was lower than 0.1Ω-cm and the transmittance is higher than 90% in a visible range.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.318-321
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• 2009

We have studied transparent top gate Al-Zn-Sn-O (AZTO) TFTs with an $Al_2O_3$ protective layer (PL) on an active layer. We also fabricated a transparent 2.5 inch QCIF+AMOLED display panel using the AZTO TFT back-plane. The AZTO active layers were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature and the PL was deposited by ALD with two different processes. The mobility and subthreshold slope were superior in the cases of the vacuum annealing and the oxygen plasma PL compared to the $O_2$ annealing and the water vapor PL, however, the bias stability was excellent for the TFTs of the $O_2$ annealing and the water vapor PL.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.38 no.7
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• pp.597-601
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• 2001

The effect of CuO, $B_2$ $O_3$, $V_2$ $O_{5}$ and CuO-B $i_2$ $O_3$additives on microwave dielectric properties of (P $b_{0.45}$C $a_{0.55}$) [(F $e_{0.5}$N $b_{0.5}$)$_{0.9}$S $n_{0.1}$] $O_3$(PCFNS) were investigated. The PCFNS ceramics were sintered at 11$65^{\circ}C$. To decrease the sintering temperature for using as a low-temperature co-firing ceramics (LTCC), CuO, $B_2$ $O_3$, $V_2$ $O_{5}$ and CuO-B $i_2$ $O_3$were added to the PCFNS. As the content of CuO increased, the sintered density and dielectric constant increased and the temperature coefficient of resonance frequency ($\tau$$_{f}$) shifted to the positive value. When the CuO-B $i_2$ $O_3$were added, dielectric properties were $\varepsilon$$_{r}$ of 83, Q. $f_{0}$ of 6085 GHz, and $\tau$$_{f}$ of 8ppm/$^{\circ}C$ at a sintering temperature of 100$0^{\circ}C$. The relationship between the microstructure and properties of ceramics was studied by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy.icroscopy.y.icroscopy.y.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.818-821
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• 2003

Sn-doped $In_{2}O_{3}$ (ITO) thin film is one of the materials widely on research not only in the academic fields but also in industrial fields because of their transparency, high conductivity and good adhesion characteristics on substrate. ITO thin films are usually preferred oriented to one of the (222), (400), and (440) planes during crystallization process, which is dependent on processing variables. The preferred orientation affects electrical, optical and etching properties of the films. In this study, thin films of preferred oriented in different orientation were fabricated by controlling processing variables. The crystallization behavior, grain size, surface roughness, transparency and electrical properties of the thin films in different orientation were examined.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.113-116
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• 2005

In this paper, silicon thin-film solar cells(Si- TFSC) and a-Si/c-Si heterojunction solar cells(HJ-cell) are investigated. The Si-TFSC was prepared on glass substrate by depositing $1-3{\mu}m$ thin-film silicons by glow discharge method. The $a-Si:H/{\mu}c-Si:H$ tandem solar cells on textured ZnO:A1 TCO (transparent conducting oxide) showed improved Jsc in top and bottom cells than that on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This enhancement of jsc resulted from improved light trapping effect by front textured ZnO:A1. The a-Si/c-Si HJ-cells with simple structure without high efficiency features are suffering from low Voc and Jsc. The improvement of front nip and back interface properties by adopting high quality silicon-films at low temperature should be done both for increasing device performances and production cost.