• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.320-325
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• 2023

In Li-ion batteries, a thick electrode is advantageous for lowering the inactive current collector portion and obtaining a high energy density. One of the critical failure mechanisms of thick electrodes is inhomogeneous lithiation and delithiation owing to the axial location of the electrode. In this study, it was confirmed that the top layer of the composite electrode contributes more to the charging step owing to the high ionic transport from the electrolyte. A high-loading multilayered electrode containing LiFePO₄ (LFP) and LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂ (NCM811) was developed to overcome the inhomogeneous electrochemical reactions in the electrode. The electrode laminated with LFP on the top and NCM811 on the bottom showed superior cyclability compared to the electrode having the reverse stacking order or thoroughly mixed. This improvement is attributed to the structural and interfacial stability of LFP on top of the thick electrode in an electrochemically harsh environment.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.24-27
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• 2023

Until now, many research activities have been conducted to commercialize high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wires for electric applications. Most of all researchers have focused on enhancing the piece length, critical current density, mechanical strength, and throughput of HTS wires. Recently, HTS magnet for generating high magnetic field shows degraded performance due to the deformation of HTS wire by high electro-magnetic force. The deformation can be derived from widthwise thickness non-uniformity of HTS wire mainly caused by wet processes such as electro-polishing of metal substrate and electro-plating of copper. Gradient sputtering process is designed to improve the thickness uniformity of HTS wire along the width direction. Copper stabilizing layer is deposited on HTS wire covered with specially designed mask. In order to evaluate the thickness uniformity of HTS wire after gradient sputtering process, the thickness distribution across the width is measured by using the optical microscope. The results show that the gradient deposition process is an effective method for improving the thickness uniformity of HTS wire.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.22-27
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• 2023

Magnetic properties of MgB₂ superconducting powder were investigated. M(H), the magnetic field H dependence of magnetization M, was measured and analyzed using a PPMS instrument. The MgB₂ superconducting powder showed high critical current density J_c > ~ 10⁷ A/cm² and clean limit superconducting properties. The equilibrium magnetization M_eq properties of MgB₂ powders exhibiting various superconducting properties were studied. We find that the equilibrium magnetization M_eq(H) properties of MgB₂ powders showing conventional BCS properties deviate from the predictions of the standard local-London theory at temperatures below T = 19 K and are in good agreement with the generalized nonlocal-London theory. Nonlocal-London analysis was used to determine and analyze the nonlocal parameters. The temperature dependence of the London penetration depth values λ(T) was studied.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.47-51
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• 2009

For many large-scale applications of high-temperature superconducting materials, large critical current density ($J_c$) in high applied magnetic fields are required. A number of methods have been reported to introduce artificial pinning centers in $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-{\delta}}$ films for enhancement of their $J_c$. We studied the microstructures and characteristic of $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-{\delta}}$ films fabricated on $SrTiO_3$ (100) substrates with ZnO nanorods as pinning centers. Au catalyst nanoparticles were synthesized on STO substrates with self assembled monolayer to control the number of ZnO nanorods. The density of Au nanoparticles is approximately $240{\sim}260{\mu}m^{-2}$ with diameters of $41{\sim}49nm$. ZnO nanorods were grown on STO by hot-walled PLD with Au nanoparticles. Typical size of ZnO nanorod was around 179 nm in diameter and $2{\sim}6{\mu}m$ in length respectively. YBCO films deposited directly on STO substrates show the c-axis orientation, while YBCO films with ZnO nanorods exhibit any mixed phases without any typical crystal orientation.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.75-79
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• 2003

YBCO films were deposited with various thicknesses from 100nm to 1.6$\mu\textrm{m}$ on single crystal $SrTiO_3$ substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The effects of different deposition conditions, especially different deposition rates by means of changing the pulsed laser frequency up to 200Hz, on the J$_{c}$ value were studied. For YBCO film with the thickness of 200nm, the $J_{c}$ value of $2.1MA/\textrm{cm}^2$ has been achieved under the high deposition rate of 3.2nm/s (190nm/min). The $J_{c}$ can be maintained greater than $1M/\textrm{cm}^2$ with the thickness less than 1$\mu\textrm{m}$. The X-ray analysis was used to examine the texture, crystallization and surface quality. The SEM was employed to analyze the surface of YBCO, and it was shown the surface of YBCO film became rougher with increasing the thickness. There were many large singular outgrowths and networks of outgrowths on the surface of YBCO films which lowered the density of thick YBCO film. The outgrowth network was probably the a-axis YBCO corresponding to XRD $\theta$-2$\theta$scan and $\chi$-scan which were used to characterize a-axis orientation of YBCO film. The reason for J$_{c}$ declining with increasing the thickness was studied and discussed.sed.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.9
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• pp.79-84
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• 2008

Switching speeds increase in both frequency and the transition rate of edges. Inadequate forecast for simultaneous switching signals may cause designing the power planes without sufficient current capability. The delay of critical signals in a chip can be therefore inadvertently increased and the situation makes it hard to debug issues. It is important to find the degree of increased switching during the debugging or chip characterization phases. This paper proposes the interpolation method to predict the switching density in a design. The interpolation was achieved by utilizing the dependencies between switching frequency and the delay appeared in a ring oscillator. The ring oscillator was primarily used to accumulate the effects of the ground bounce by higher switching. The result of interpolation was demonstrated using DongBu Hitec 0.18um CMOS technology.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.291-309
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• 2020

Chromium was electrodeposited from deep eutectic solvents-based Cr³⁺ electrolytes on HB-pencil graphite electrode. Factors influencing the electrochemical behavior and the processes of Cr nucleation and growth were explored using cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry techniques, respectively. Cr³⁺ reduction was found to occur through an irreversible diffusion-controlled step followed by another irreversible one of impure diffusional behaviour. The reduction behavior was found to be greatly affected by Cr³⁺ concentration, temperature, and type of hydrogen bond donor used in deep eutectic solvents (DESs) preparation. A more comprehensive model was suggested and successfully applied to extract a consistent data relevant to Cr nucleation kinetics from the experimental current density transients. The potential, the temperature, and the hydrogen bond donor type were estimated to be critical factors controlling Cr nucleation. The nucleation and growth processes of Cr from either choline chloride/ethylene glycol (EG-DES) or choline chloride/urea (U-DES) deep eutectic solvents were evaluated at 70℃ to be three-dimensional (3D) instantaneous and diffusion-controlled, respectively. However, the kinetics of Cr nucleation from EG-DES was found to be faster than that from U-DES. Cr nucleation was tending to be instantaneous at higher temperature, potential, and Cr³⁺ concentration. Cr nuclei electrodeposited from EG-DES were characterized at different conditions using scanning electron microscope (SEM). SEM images show that high number density of fine spherical nuclei of almost same sizes was nearly obtained at higher temperature and more negative potential. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis confirms that Cr deposits were obtained.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.37-40
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• 2016

We have investigated the addition effect of NiO magnetic nanoparticles on crystal structure, microstructure as well as superconducting properties of $MgB_2$. NiO-added $MgB_2$ samples were prepared by the solid-state reaction method. The superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$) of 37.91 K was obtained for pure $MgB_2$, and $T_c$ was found to decrease systematically on increasing the addition level of NiO. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that no substitution of Ni for Mg in the lattice of $MgB_2$ was occurred. The microstructural analysis shows that the pure $MgB_2$ sample consists of plate shape $MgB_2$ grains, and the grains get refined to smaller size with the addition of NiO nanoparticles. At 5 K, high values of critical current density ($J_c$) were obtained for small amount NiO-added $MgB_2$ samples as compared to pure sample. The enhancement in $J_c$ could be attributed to the refinement of $MgB_2$ grains which leads to high density of grain boundaries in NiO-added $MgB_2$ samples.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.15-20
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• 2013

We investigated the flux pinning properties of both 10 mol% Zr-and Sn-doped $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-{\delta}}$ (YBCO) films with the same thickness of ~350 nm for a comparative purpose. The films were prepared on the $SrTiO_3$ (STO) single crystal substrate by the metal-organic deposition (MOD) process. Compared with Sn-doped YBCO film, Zr-doped one exhibited a significant enhancement in the critical current density ($J_c$) and pinning force density ($F_p$). The anisotropic $J_{c,min}/J_{c,max}$ ratio in the field-angle dependence of $J_c$ at 77 K for 1 T was also improved from 0.23 for Sn-doped YBCO to 0.39 for Zr-doped YBCO. Thus, the highest magnetic $J_c$ values of 9.0 and $2.9MA/cm^2$ with the maximum $F_p$ ($F_{p,max}$) values of 19 and $5GN/m^3$ at 65 and 77 K for H // c, respectively, could be achieved from Zr-doped YBCO film. The stronger pinning effect in Zr-doped YBCO film is attributable to smaller $BaZrO_3$ (BZO) nanoparticles (the average size ${\approx}28.4$ nm) than $YBa_2SnO_{5.5}$ (YBSO) nanoparticles (the average size ${\approx}45.0$ nm) incorporated in Sn-doped YBCO film since smaller nanoparticles can generate more defects acting as effective flux pinning sites due to larger incoherent interfacial area for the same doping concentration.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2004

Ni alloy tape is electropolished to be used as a metal substrate for fabrication of IBAD (ion-Beam Assisted Deposition)-MgO texture template fur HTS coated conductor. Electropolishing is needed to obtain a very smooth surface of Ni alloy tape because the in-plane texture of templates is sensitive to the roughness of metal substrate. The critical current of YBCO coated conductor depends on the texture of YBCO that depends on the texture of the IBAD MgO layer. And so the smoothness of the metal substrate is directly related to the superconducting properties of the coated conductor. In this study, we have prepared a reel-to-reel electropolishing apparatus to polish the Ni alloy tapes for IBAD. Various electropolishing conditions were investigated to improve the surface roughness. Hastelloy tape is continuously electropolished with high polishing current density (0.5 ∼ 2 A/$\textrm{cm}^2$) and fast processing time (1 ∼ 3 min). Polished hastelloy tapes have surface roughness(RMS) of below 1 nm on a 5 ${\times}$ 5 $\mu\m^2$ from AFM and SEM.