• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.110-116
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• 2001

Abstract To investigate the effect of mechanical alloying process to thermoelectric properties of PbTe sintered body, Pb-Te mixed powder with Pb : Te : 1 : 1 composition was mechanically alloyed using tumbler-ball mill. Thermoelectric properties of the sintered body were evaluated by measuring of the Seebeck coefficient and specific electric resistivity from the room temperature to 50$0^{\circ}C$. Sintered body of only mechanically alloyed PbTe powder showed p-type behavior at the room temperature, and occurred type transition from p-type to n-type at about 30$0^{\circ}C$. PbTe sintered body which was fabricated using heat treated powder in $H_2$ atmosphere after mechanical alloying showed stable n-type behavior under 50$0^{\circ}C$. N-type PbTe sintered body fabricated by mechanical alloying process had 4 times higher power factor than that fabricated by the melt-crushing process. Application of a mechanical alloying process to fabricate of n-type PbTe thermoelectric material seemed to be useful to increase the power factor of PbTe sintered body.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2000

Two kinds of Bi2Te3 powders, pure Bi2Te3/2vol.%ZrO2, have been prepared by a mechanical grinding process process. Effect of mixing of the powders on thermoelectric of the sintered body has been investigated by measuring Seebeck Coeffcient, specific electric resistivity and thermal conductivity. With an increase in the weight fraction of the Bi2Te3/2vol.%ZrO2 powder from 0 to 40wt.%. Especially, the figure of merit of the mixedBi2Te3 sintered body increases and thereafter dedreases above 40wt.%. Especially. the figure of merit of the mixed Bi2Te3 sintered bodies with mixing of Bi2Te3/2vol.%ZrO2 powder increased about 1.3time in comparison with the value of the specimen before mixing. Mixing of two kinds of Bi2Te3 powders which have different theramal and electric propertries with each other seemed to be useful methob to increase the figure of merit of Bi2Te3 sintered body.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.6
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• pp.1146-1150
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• 2009

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is one of the most attractive photovoltaic materials due to its low cost, high efficiency and stable performance in physical, optical and electronic properties. Few researches on the influences of uniform surface on the photovoltaic characteristics in large-area CdTe solar cell were not reported. As the preceding study of the effects of thickness-uniformity on the photovoltaic characteristics for the large-area CdTe thin film solar cell, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process was investigated for an enhancement of thickness-uniformity. Removal rate of CdTe thin film was 3160 nm/min of the maximum value at the 200 $gf/cm^2$ of down force (pressure) and 60 rpm of table speed (velocity). The removal rate of CdTe thin film was more affected by the down force than the table speed which is the two main factors directly influencing on the removal rate in CMP process. RMS roughness and peak-to-valley roughness of CdTe thin film after CMP process were improved to 96.68% and 85.55%, respectively. The optimum process condition was estimated by 100 $gf/cm^2$ of down force and 60 rpm of table speed with the consideration of good removal uniformity about 5.0% as well as excellent surface roughness for the large-area CdTe solar cell.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.2167-2170
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• 2013

A low-cost and simple recycling process of waste thermoelectric modules has been investigated using chemical reduction methods. The recycling is separated by two processes, such as dissolving and reduction. When the waste thermoelectric chips are immersed into a high concentration of $HNO_3$ aqueous solution at $100^{\circ}C$, oxide powders, e.g., $TeO_2$ and $Sb_2O_3$, are precipitated in the $Bi^{3+}$ and $HTeO{_2}^+$ ions contained solution. By employing a reduction process with the ions contained solutions, $Bi_2Te_3$ nanoparticles are successfully synthesized. Due to high reduction potential of $HTeO{_2}^+$ to Te, Te elements are initially formed and subsequently $Bi_2Te_3$ nanoparticles are formed. The average particle size of $Bi_2Te_3$ was calculated to be 25 nm with homogeneous size distribution. On the other hand, when the precipitated powders reduced by hydrazine, $Sb_2O_3$ and Te nanoparticles are synthesized because of higher reduction potentials of $TeO_2$ to Te. After the washing step, the $Sb_2O_3$ are clearly removed, results in Te nanoparticles.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.8-13
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• 2002

Controlled precipitation of quasi-binary semiconductor system is newly proposed as an effective and reliable technique for the formation of well-defined and crystallographically aligned semiconductor nanostructures. Using HgTe-PbTe quasi-binary semiconductor system, self-aligned HgTe nanocrystallites distributed three dimensionally within PbTe matrix were successfully formed by the simple three step heat treatment process routinely found in age hardening process of metallic alloys. Examination of the resulting nano precipitates using conventional transmission electron microscopy (CTEM) and high resolution TEM (HRTEM) reveals that the coherent HgTe precipitates form as thin discs along the (100) habit planes making a crystallographic relation of {100}$\_$HgTe///{100}$\_$PbTe/ and [100]$\_$HgTe///[100]$\_$PbTe/. It is also found that the precipitate undergoes a gradual thickening and a faceting under isothermal aging up to 500 hours without any noticeable coarsening. These results, combined with the extreme dimension of the precipitates (4-5 nm in length and sub-nanometer in thickness) and the simplicity of the formation process, leads to the conclusion that controlled precipitation is an effective method for preparing desirable quantum-dot nanostructures.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.246-252
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• 1996

$Bi_{2}Te_{3}-Sb_{2}Te_{3}$, $Bi_{2}Te_{3}-Bi_{2}Se_{3}$ solid solutions are of great interest as materials for thermoelectric energy conversion. One of the key technologies to ensure the efficiency of thermoelectric device is to obtain chemically homogeneous solid solutions. In this work, the new process with rapid solidification followed by hot pressing was investigated to produce homogeneous thermoelectric materials. Characteristics of the materials were examined with XRD, SEM, EPMA-line scan and bending test. Property variations of the materials were investigated as a function of variables, such as excess Te quantity and hot pressing temperature. Quenched ribbons are very brittle and consisted of homogeneous $Bi_{2}Te_{3}$, $Sb_{2}Te_{3}$ solid solutions. When the process parameters were optimized, the maximum figure of merit was 3.073$\times$$10^{-3}K^{-4}$. The bending strength of the material, hot pressed at 45$0^{\circ}C$, was 5.87 kgf/${mm}^2$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.375-375
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• 2010

CdTe as an absorber material is widely used in thin film solar cells with the heterostructure due to its almost ideal band gap energy of 1.45 eV, high photovoltaic conversion efficiency, low cost and stable performance. The deposition methods and preparation conditions for the fabrication of CdTe are very important for the achievement of high solar cell conversion efficiency. There are some rearranged reports about the deposition methods available for the preparation of CdTe thin films such as close spaced sublimation (CSS), physical vapor deposition (PVD), vacuum evaporation, vapor transport deposition (VTD), closed space vapor transport, electrodeposition, screen printing, spray pyrolysis, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and RF sputtering. The RF sputtering method for the preparation of CdTe thin films has important advantages in that the thin films can be prepared at low growth temperatures with large-area deposition suitable for mass-production. The authors reported that the optical and electrical properties of CdTe thin film were closely connected by the thickness-uniformity of the film in the previous study [1], which means that the better optical absorbance and the higher carrier concentration could be obtained in the better condition of thickness-uniformity for CdTe thin film. The thickness-uniformity could be controlled and improved by the some process parameters such as vacuum level and RF power in the sputtering process of CdTe thin films. However, there is a limitation to improve the thickness-uniformity only in the preparation process [1]. So it is necessary to introduce the external or additional method for improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film because the cell size of thin film solar cell will be enlarged. Therefore, the authors firstly applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin films with a G&P POLI-450 CMP polisher [2]. CMP process is the most important process in semiconductor manufacturing processes in order to planarize the surface of the wafer even over 300 mm and to form the copper interconnects with damascene process. Some important CMP characteristics for CdTe were obtained including removal rate (RR), WIWNU%, RMS roughness, and peak-to-valley roughness [2]. With these important results, the CMP process for CdTe thin films was performed to improve the thickness-uniformity of the sputtering-deposited CdTe thin film which had the worst two thickness-uniformities of them. Some optical properties including optical transmittance and absorbance of the CdTe thin films were measured by using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer (Varian Techtron, Cary500scan) in the range of 400 - 800 nm. After CMP process, the thickness-uniformities became better than that of the best condition in the previous sputtering process of CdTe thin films. Consequently, the optical properties were directly affected by the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film. The absorbance of CdTe thin films was improved although the thickness of CdTe thin film was not changed.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.02a
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• pp.360-361
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• 2004

An atomization doping process is proposed to manufacture nonlinear optical fiber containing higher concentration of PbTe nano-particles in the core of the fiber than that by the conventional solution doping process. The absorption peaks appeared near 725nm, 880nm, and 1050nm are attributed to the PbTe quantum dots in the fiber core.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.50-56
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• 2007

This study aims to find the optimal cutting conditions, when are IR Detection device HgCdTe is machined with diamond tool of diamond turning machine. Machining technique for HgCdTe with single point diamond turning tool is reported in this paper. The main factors influencing the machined surface quality are discovered and regularities of machining process are drawn. It has been found HgCdTe has more and more important applications in the field of modern optics. The purpose of our research is to find the optimum machining conditions for ductile cutting of HgCdTe and apply the SPDT technique to the manufacturing of ultra precision optical components of brittle materials.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.14 no.2 s.43
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• pp.9-15
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• 2007

Thermoelectric properties of the electrodeposited Bi-Te films and photoresist process have been investigated to apply for thermoelectric thin film devices. After plating in Bi-Te solutions of 20 mM concentration, which were prepared by dissolving $Bi_2O_3$ and $TeO_2$ into 1M $HNO_3$, thermoelectric properties of the films were characterized with variation of the Te/(Bi+Te) ratio in a plating solution. With increasing the Te/(Bi+Te) ratio in the plating solution from 0.5 to 0.65, Seebeck coefficient of Bi-Te films changed from $-59{\mu}V/K$ to $-48{\mu}V/K$ and electrical resistivity was lowered from $1m{\Omega}-cm$ to $0.8m{\Omega}-cm$ due to the increase in the electron concentration. Maximum power factor of $3.5{\times}10^{-4}W/K^2-m$ was obtained for the Bi-Te film with the $Bi_2Te_3$ stoichiometric composition. Using multilayer overhang process, the photoresist pattern to form thermoelectric legs of 30 m depth and 100m diameter was successfully fabricated fur micro thermoelectric device applications.