• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.33-43
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• 2012

Why solar companies preferred vertical integration of whole value chain? Major solar companies have built internally strong vertical integration of entire PV value chain. We raise a question whether such integration increases the corporate value and whether market situation affects the result. To test these questions, we conducted multi-variant analysis where characteristic factors mainly affect the corporate value measured in terms of Tobin'Q, based on the financial and non-financial data of PV companies listed in US stock market between 2005 and 2010. We hypothesize that since integration increases the overall efficiency but decreases the flexibility to adjust to various market situation, the combined effect of the efficiency gain and the flexibility loss ultimately determines the sign of integration effect on the corporate vale. We infer that the combined effect will be influenced heavily by business cycle, as in boom market (Seller's market) the efficiency gain may be larger than the flexibility loss and vice versa in bust market. We test whether the sign of combined effect changes after the year of 2009 and which factors influence most the sign. Year of 2009 is known as the year when market shifted from Seller's to Buyer's market. We show that 1) integration increases corporate value in general but after 2009 integration significantly decreases the value, 2) the ratios such as Production/Total Cost, Cash turnover period chosen for reversal of the flexibility measure are negatively affect Tobin's Q and especially stronger after 2009. This shows the flexibility improves corporate value and stronger in the recess period (Buyer's market). These results imply that solar company should set up integration strategy considering the tradeoff between efficiency and flexibility and the impact of the business cycle on both factors. Strategy only based on the price competitiveness determined in boom time can bring undesirable outcomes to the company. In addition, Strategic alliances in some value chains as a flexible bondage should be taken in account as complementary choice to the rigid integration.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.44-50
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• 1986

Si-ZnO n-n heterojunction diodes were prespared by r.f diode sputtering of the sintered ZnO target on n-type Si single crystal wafers and their structures and electrical properties were studied. The films were grown orientedly with the c-axis of crystallites perpendicular to the substrate surface at low r.f. powder and grown to polycrystalline films with random orientation at high r. f. powder. The crystallite size increased with the increasing substrate temperture The oriented texture films only were used to prepare the photovoltaic diodes and these didoes showed the photovoltaic effect veing positive of the ZnO side for the photons in the wavelength range of 380-1450nm. The sign reversal of phootovoltage which is the property os isotype heterojunction was not observed because of the degeneration of the ZnO films. The diode showed the forward rectification when it was biased with the ZnO side positive. The current-voltage characteristics exhibited the thermal-current type relationship J∝exp(qV/nkT) with n=1.23 at the low forward bias voltage and the tunnelling-current type relationship J∝exp($\alpha$V) where $\alpha$ was constant independent of temperature at the high forward bias voltage. The crystallite size of ZnO films were influenced largely on the photovoltaic properties of diodes ; The diodes with the films of the larger crystallites showed the poor photovoltaic properties. This reason may be cosidered that the ZnO films with the large crystallites could not grow to the electrically continuous films because the thickness of films was so thin in this experiment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.366-366
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• 2010

Single crystalline Fe/NiO bilayers were epitaxially grown on Ag(001) and on MgO(001), and investigated by Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED), Magneto-Optic Kerr Effect (MOKE), and X-ray Magnetic Linear Dichorism (XMLD). We find that while the Fe film has an in-plane magnetization in both Fe/NiO/Ag(001) and Fe/NiO/MgO(001) systems, the NiO spins switch from out-of-plane direction in Fe/NiO/MgO(001) to in-plane direction in Fe/NiO/Ag(001). These two different NiO spin orientations generate remarkable different effects that the NiO induced magnetic anisotropy in the Fe film is much greater in Fe/NiO/Ag(001) than in Fe/NiO/MgO(001). XMLD measurement shows that the much greater magnetic anisotropy in Fe/NiO/Ag(001) is due to a 90o-coupling between the in-plane NiO spins and the in-plane Fe spins which causes a switching of the NiO spins during the Fe magnetization reversal.