• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.696-696
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• 2013

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) have been gaining academic/industrial attention due to the unique high efficiency and minimized pollution emission. SOFCs are an electrochemical system composed of dissimilar materials which operates at relatively high temperatures ranging from 800 to 1000oC. The cell performance is critically dependent on the inherent properties and integration processing of the constituents, a cathode, an electrolyte, an anode, and an interconnect in addition to the sealing materials. In particular, the gas transport, ion transport, and by-product removal also affect the cell performance, in terms of open cell voltages, and cell powers. In particular, the polarization of cathode materials is one of the main sources which affects the overall function in SOFCs. Up to now, there have been studies on the materials design and microstructure design of the component materials. The current work reports the effect of thin film processing on cathode polarization in solid oxide fuel cells. The polarization issues are discussed in terms of dc- and ac-based electrical characterizations. The potential of thin film processing to the applicability to SOFCs is discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.579-580
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• 2012

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.84.1-84.1
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• 2011

Typical solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have limited applications because they operate at high temperature due to low ionic conductivity of electrolyte. Thin film solid oxide fuel cell with yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte is developed to decrease operating temperature. Pt/YSZ/Pt thin film SOFC was fabricated on anodic aluminum oxide (AAO). The crystalline structure of YSZ electrolyte by sputter is heavily depends on the roughness of porous Pt layer, which results in pinholes. To deposit YSZ electrolyte without pinholes and electrical shortage, it is necessary to deposit smoother and denser layer between Pt anode layer and YSZ layer by sputter. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technique is used to deposit pre-YSZ layer, and it improved electrolyte quality. 300nm thick Bi-layered YSZ electrolyte was successfully deposited without electrical shortage.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.319-325
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• 2011

The electrical properties of sputtered GDC thin films on $Al_2O_3$ substrates was studied. The electrical properties of the films were measured to evaluate the ion conductivity of GDC thin films for co-planar SOFC electrolytes. The impedance of the GDC thin films on $Al_2O_3$ substrates was affected by the film thickness and the impedance of thin film exhibited higher value than thick films. Similarly, the conductivity of the thick film showed much higher value than thin films. It indicated that the film thickness is the main factor affecting the conductivity and impedance of the GDC electrolyte for the co-planar SOFC.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.130-145
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• 2019

Widespread commercialization of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is expected to be realized in various application fields with the advent of cost-effective fabrication of cells and stacks in high volumes. Cost-reduction efforts have focused on production yield, power density, operation temperature, and continuous manufacturing. In this article, we examine several issues associated with processing for SOFCs from the standpoint of the bimodal packing model, considering the external constraints imposed by rigid substrates. Optimum compositions of composite cathode materials with high volume fractions of the second phase (particles dispersed in matrix) have been analyzed using the bimodal packing model. Constrained sintering of thin electrolyte layers is also discussed in terms of bimodal packing, with emphasis on the clustering of dispersed particles during anisotropic shrinkage. Finally, the structural transition of dispersed particle clusters during constrained sintering has been correlated with the structural stability of thin-film electrolyte layers deposited on porous solid substrates.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.11 s.294
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• pp.746-750
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• 2006

NiO films and Ru co-sputtered NiO films were deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering for micro-solid oxide fuel cell anode applications. The deposited films were reduced to form porous films. The reduction kinetics of the Ru doped NiO film was more sluggish than that of the NiO film, and the resulting microstructure of the former exhibited finer pore networks. The possibility of using the films for the anodes of single chamber micro-SOFCs was investigated using an air/fuel mixed environment. It was found that the abrupt increase in the resistance is suppressed in the Ru co-sputtered film, as compared to undoped film.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.338-343
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• 2015

To prevent an interfacial reaction between the anode and the electrolyte layer during the conventional high-temperature co-firing process, an anode-supported type cell with a thin-film electrolyte was fabricated by low-temperature ceramic thick film coating process. Ni-GDC cermet composite was used as the anode material and YSZ was used as the electrolyte material. Open circuit voltage and maximum power density were found to strongly depend on the surface uniformity of the anode functional layer. By optimizing the microstructure of the anode functional layer, the open circuit voltage and maximum powder density of the cell increased to 1.11 V and $1.35W/cm^2$, respectively, at $750^{\circ}C$. When a GDC barrier layer was applied between the YSZ electrolyte and the LSCF cathode, the cell showed good stability, with almost no degradation up to 100 h. Anode-supported type SOFCs with high performance and good stability were fabricated using a coating process.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.792-797
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• 1999

The 8mol.%Y$_2$$O_3$-$ZrO_2$mainly employed as an electrolyte of solid oxide fuel cells(SOFCs) shows excellent electrical properties but has a weakness in the mechanical properties. Since the electrolyte of SOFCs requires both good electrical and mechanical properties, this study was conducted to meet both requirements. The electrolyte thin films were produced on the LSM(cathode material) substrate of a cell and Si wafer. Four electrolyte film types of single layer and the multiple layer, consisting of 3-YSZ(3mol.%$Y_2$$O_3$) with excellent mechanical properties and 8-YSZ with the excellent electric conduction, were produced by electron beam coating technology. Ther crystal structure and the mechanical properties were also analysed. As the results of the study, the 3-YSZ thin film turned out to be in the tetragonal, partially monoclinic phase, while the 8-YSZ thin film showed the cubic phase. The residual stress in the multiple layer was lower than that of the single layer. The microhardness of the multiple layer was similar to that of the existing 8-YSZ single layer both before and after annealing treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.82-85
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• 2010

Recently, thin film processes for oxides and metal deposition, such as physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), have been widely adapted to fabricate solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this paper, we presented two research area of the use of such techniques. Gadolinium doped ceria (GDC) showed high ionic conductivity and could guarantee operation at low temperature. But the electron conductivity at low oxygen partial pressure and the weak mechanical property have been significant problems. To solve these issues, we coated GDC electrolyte with a nano scale yittria-doped stabilized zirconium (YSZ) layer via atomic layer deposition (ALD). We expected that the thin YSZ layer could have functions of electron blocking and preventing ceria from the reduction atmosphere. Yittria-doped barium zirconium (BYZ) has several orders higher proton conductivity than oxide ion conductor as YSZ and also has relatively high chemical stability. The fabrication processes of BYZ is very sophisticated, especially the synthesis of thin-film BYZ. We discussed the detailed fabrication processes of BYZ as well as the deposition of electrode. This paper discusses possible cell structure and process flow to accommodate such films.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.75-81
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• 2010

The feasibility of using the thin film technology in utilizing lanthanum strontium manganite (LSM) for a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cathode in a low-temperature regime is investigated in this study. Thin film LSM cathodes were fabricated using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on anode-supported SOFCs with yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolytes. Although cells with a 1 ${\mu}m$-thick LSM cathode showed poor low-temperature cell performance compared to that of a cell with a bulk-processed cathode due to the lack of a triple-phase boundary length, the cell with 200 nm-thick gadolinia-doped ceria (GDC) inserted between the LSM and YSZ showed enhanced performance and more stable operation characteristics in a comparison of a cell without a GDC layer. We postulate that the GDC layer likely improved the cathode adhesion, therefore contributing to the improvement of the cell performance instead of serving as an interfacial reaction buffer.