• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.56-56
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• 2018

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) have attracted attention due to their high electrical conductivity and optical transparency in the visible region. Consequently, TCOs have been widely used as electrode materials in various electronic devices such as flat panel displays and solar cells. Previous studies on TCOs focused on their electrical and optical performances; there have been numerous attempts to improve these properties, such as chemical doping and crystallinity enhancement. Recently, due to rapidly increasing demand for flexible electronics, the academic interest in the mechanical stability of materials has come to the fore as a major issue. In particular, long-term stability under bending is a crucial requirement for flexible electrodes; however, research on this feature is still in the nascent stage. Hydrogen-incorporated amorphous In-Sn-O (a-ITO) thin films were fabricated by introducing hydrogen gas during deposition. The hydrogen concentration in the film was determined by secondary ion mass spectrometry and was found to vary from $4.7{\times}10^{20}$ to $8.1{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$ with increasing $H_2$ flow rate. The mechanical stability of the a-ITO thin films dramatically improved because of hydrogen incorporation, without any observable degradation in their electrical or optical properties. With increasing hydrogen concentration, the compressive residual stress gradually decreased and the subgap absorption at around 3.1 eV was suppressed. Considering that the residual stress and subgap absorption mainly originated from defects, hydrogen may be a promising candidate for defect passivation in flexible electronics.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.975-979
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• 2014

Transparent conductive films (TCF) with excellent electrical properties and high mechanical flexibility have been widely studied because of their potential for application in optoelectronic devices such as light-emitting diodes, paper displays and organic solar cells. In this paper, we report on low-resistance and high-transparent TCF for flexible device applications. To fabricate a high-resolution roll imprinted TCF, the following steps were performed: the design and manufacture of an electroforming stamp mold, the fabrication of high-resolution roll imprinted on flexible film, the manufacture of Ag-nano paste which was filled into patterned film using a doctor blade process. Also, we was demonstrated with the successful application(ITO free organic photovoltaic) of the developed flexible TCF.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.434-434
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• 2012

Despite recent efforts for fabricating flexible transparent conducting films (TCFs) with low resistance and high transmittance, several obstacles to meet the requirement of flexible displays still remain. Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films, which have been traditionally used as the TCFs, have a serious obstacle in TCFs applications. SWNTs are the most appropriate materials for conductive films for displays due to their excellent high mechanical strength and electrical conductivity. Recently, it has been demonstrated that acid treatment is an efficient method for surfactant removal. However, the treatment has been reported to destroy most SWNT. In this work, the fabrication by the spraying process of transparent SWNT films and reduction of its sheet resistance by Au-ionic doping treatment on PET substrates is researched. Arc-discharge SWNTs were dispersed in deionized water by adding sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as surfactant and sonicated, followed by the centrifugation. The dispersed SWNT was spray-coated on PET substrate and dried on a hotplate. When the spray process was terminated, the TCF was immersed into deionized water to remove the surfactant and then it was dried on hotplate. The TCF film was then was doped with Au-ionic doping treatment, rinsed with deionized water and dried. The surface morphology of TCF was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy. The sheet resistance and optical transmission properties of the TCF were measured with a four-point probe method and a UV-visible spectrometry, respectively. This was confirmed and discussed on the XPS and UPS studies. We show that 87 ${\Omega}/{\Box}$ sheet resistances with 81% transmittance at the wavelength of 550 nm. The changes in electrical and optical conductivity of SWNT film before and after Au-ionic doping treatments were discussed. The effects of hole transport interface layer using Au-ionic doping SWNT on the performance of organic solar cells were investigated.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.spc8
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• pp.3074-3080
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• 2011

We synthesized three novel poly(norbornene bisimide)s by ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) and subsequent hydrogenation. Their thermal, mechanical and optical properties were investigated with TGA, DMA, UV-Vis spectrometer, and optical reflectometer. The new polymers showed high glass transition temperatures over $260^{\circ}C$ and good thermal stability with 5% wt-loss temperature higher than $390^{\circ}C$. When solvent casted, they yielded optically transparent and dimensionally stable films with a relatively low coefficient of thermal expansion of about 50 ppm $K^{-1}$. Therefore, the bisimide moieties substantially enhanced thermal and dimensional stabilities, as compared with normal ROMP-prepared polynorbornene films. Though the water uptake was increased to 0.6 wt-%, this water uptake is still considerably lower than that for polyethersulfones (1.4 wt-%) or polyimides (2.0 wt-%). Hence, the new poly(norbornene bisimide)s may become attractive candidates for flexible substrates of optoelectronic devices such as displays and photovoltaic solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.498-503
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• 2016

Many types of robot systems are used in the mass production line of thin film solar cells and flat panel displays. There are some issues such as the deflection and the vibration of the end-effector because robots handle large and heavy substrates at high speed. Heavy payload and high speed cause much vibration because the end-effector (fork) is made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer because of its light weightiness and sufficient stiffness. This study performs a dynamic simulation of an 8.5G solar cell substrate handling robot, including rigid and flexible bodies and a vibration controller. The fifth polynomial trajectory and the zero vibration derivative input shaping algorithm are applied. The vibration reduction is also proved in the experiments.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.577-582
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• 2013

AZO (aluminum-doped zinc oxide) is one of the best candidate materials to replace ITO (indium tin oxide) for TCOs (transparent conductive oxides) used in flat panel displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic solar cells (OSCs). In the present study, to apply an AZO thin film to the transparent electrode of an organic solar cell, a low-temperature selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) process was adopted to deposit an AZO thin film on a flexible poly-ethylene-naphthalate (PEN) substrate. The reactive gases for the ALD process were di-ethyl-zinc (DEZ) and tri-methyl-aluminum (TMA) as precursors and H2O as an oxidant. The structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of the AZO thin film were evaluated. From the measured results of the electrical and optical characteristics of the AZO thin films deposited on the PEN substrates by ALD, it was shown that the AZO thin film appeared to be comparable to a commercially used ITO thin film, which confirmed the feasibility of AZO as a TCO for flexible organic solar cells in the near future.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.358-363
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• 2016

Noncontact direct-printed conductive silver patterns with an enhanced electrical resistivity are fabricated using a silver ink with a mixture of silver nanoparticles and nanoplates. The microstructure and electrical resistivity of the silver pattern are systematically investigated as a function of the mixing ratio of the nanoparticles and nanoplates. The pattern, which is fabricated using a mixture with a mixing ratio of 3(nanoparticles):7(nanoplates) and sintered at $200^{\circ}C$ shows a highly dense and well-sintered microstructure and has a resistivity of $7.60{\mu}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This originates a mutual synergistic effect through a combination of the sinterability of the nanoparticles and the packing ability of the nanoplates. This is a conductive material that can be used to fabricate noncontact direct-printed conductive patterns with excellent electrical conductivity for various flexible electronics applications, including solar cells, displays, RFIDs, and sensors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.407-408
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• 2013

Thin transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) having a thickness lower than 30 nm have been widely usedin touch screen panels. However the resistivity of the TCO films significantly increases as the thickness decreases, due to the poor crystallinity at very thin thickness of TCO films. In this study, we have investigated the effect of electron beam irradiation during the sputtering on the electrical properties and transmittance of 30 nm-thick ITO films, which have a different SnO2 atomic percent, prepared by magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Fig. 1 shows the variation of resistivity of ITO films with a different SnO2 atomic percent for both the normal ITO films and electron beam irradiated ITO films. As shows in Fig. 1, the electron beam irradiation to the ITO (SnO2 weight percent 10%) films during the sputtering resulted in a significantly decreased in resistivity from $7.4{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}-cm$ to $1.5{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}-cm$ and it also increased in transmittance from 84% to 88% at a wavelength of 550 nm. These results can be attributed to energy transfer from electron to ad-atoms of ITO films during the electron beam irradiated sputtering, which can enhance the crystallinity of 30 nm-thick ITO films. It is strongly indicate that electron beam irradiation can greatly improve the electrical properties and transmittance of very thin ITO films for touch screen panels, flexible displays and solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.144-148
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• 2007

To prepare the transparent electrode for electronic devices such as flat panel or flexible displays, solar cells, and touch panels; tin doped $In_2O_3$ (ITO) films with low resistivity and a high transparency were fabricated using a facing target sputtering (FTS) system at the various oxygen gas flow rate. The carrier concentration and mobility of ITO films were measured by Hall Effect measurement. And the transmittance was measured using the UV-VIS spectrometer. As a result, we can obtain the ITO thin films prepared at 10% oxygen gas flow ratio, thickness 150 nm with transmittance 85% and resistivity $8.1{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ and surface roughness 5.01 nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.297-297
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• 2010

Transparent conductive Oxide (TCO) is an essential material in the various optoelectronic applications as a transparent electrode, such as solar cells, flat panel displays and organic light emitting diodes. Currently, Indium tin oxide (ITO) is commonly used in industry due to its low electrical resistivity, high transmittance and high adhesion to substrate. However, ITO is expensive and should be prepared at high temperature, which makes it hard to use ITO in flexible devices. In this regard, Ga-doped ZnO is expected as an ideal candidate for replacing ITO.