• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.100-107
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• 2021

As a significant technology in the smartization era promoted by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the secondary battery industry has recently attracted significant attention. The demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), which exhibit excellent performance, is considerably increasing in different industrial fields. During the manufacturing process of LIBs, it is necessary to join the cathode and anode sheets with thicknesses of several tens of micrometers to lead taps of the cathode and anode with thicknesses of several hundreds of micrometers. Ultrasonic welding exhibits excellent bonding when bonded with very thin plates, such as negative and positive electrodes of LIBs, and dissimilar and highly conductive materials. In addition, ultrasonic welding has a small heat-affected zone. In LIBs, Cu is mainly used as the negative electrode sheet, whereas Cu or Ni is used as the negative electrode tab. In this study, one or two electrode sheets (t0.025 mm Cu) were welded to one lead tab (t0.1 mm Cu). The welding energy and pressure were used as welding parameters to determine the welding strength of the interface between two or three welded materials. Finally, the effects of these welding parameters on the welding strength were investigated.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.196-205
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• 2019

Ni-rich layered oxides $Li(Ni_xCo_yMn_z)O_2$ (x + y + z = 1) have been extensively studied in recent times owing to their high capacity and low cost and can possibly replace $LiCoO_2$ in the near future. However, these layered oxides suffer from problems related to the capacity fading, thermal stability, and safety at high voltages. In this study, we use surface coating as a strategy to improve the thermal stability at higher voltages. The uniform and conformal $Al_2O_3$ coating on prefabricated electrodes using atomic layer deposition significantly prevented surface degradation over prolonged cycling. Initial capacity of 190, 199, 188 and $166mAh\;g^{-1}$ is obtained for pristine, 2, 5 and 10 cycles of ALD coated samples at 0.2C and maintains 145, 158, 151 and $130mAh\;g^{-1}$ for high current rate of 2C in room temperature. The two-cycle $Al_2O_3$ modified cathode retained 75% of its capacity after 500 cycles at 5C with 0.05% capacity decay per cycle, compared with 46.5% retention for a pristine electrode, at an elevated temperature. Despite the insulating nature of the $Al_2O_3$ coating, a thin layer is sufficient to improve the capacity retention at a high temperature. The $Al_2O_3$ coating can prevent the detrimental surface reactions at a high temperature. Thus, the morphology of the active material is well-maintained even after extensive cycling, whereas the bare electrode undergoes severe degradation.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.205-210
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• 2022

A novel OLED pixel circuit is proposed in this paper that uses only n-type thin-film transistors(TFTs) to improve the luminance non-uniformity of the AMOLED display caused by the threshold voltage variation of an OLED driving TFT. The proposed OLED pixel circuit is composed of 6 n-channel TFTs and 2 capacitors. The operation of the proposed OLED pixel circuit consists of the capacitor initializing period, threshold voltage sensing period of an OLED·driving TFT, image data voltage writing period, and OLED·emitting period. As a result of SmartSpice simulation, when the threshold voltage of·OLED·driving TFT varies from 1.2 V to 1.8 V, the proposed OLED pixel circuit has a maximum current error of 5.18 % at IOLED = 1 nA. And, when the OLED cathode voltage rises by 0.1 V, the proposed OLED pixel circuit has very little change in the OLED current compared to the conventional OLED pixel circuit. Therefore, the proposed pixel circuit exhibits superior compensation characteristics for the threshold voltage variation of an OLED driving TFT and the rise of the OLED cathode voltage compared to the conventional OLED pixel circuit.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.420-424
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• 2016

In this study, we developed photocatalytic technology to address the emerging serious problem of air pollution through indoor air cleaning. A single layer of $WO_3$ was prepared by using the dry process of general RF magnetron sputtering. At a base vacuum of $1.8{\times}10^{-6}$[Torr], the optical and electrical properties of the resulting thin films were examined for use as a transparent electrode as well as a photocatalyst. The single layer of $WO_3$ prepared at an RF power of 100 [W], a pressure of 7 [mTorr] and Ar and $O_2$ gas flow rates of 70 and 2 sccm, respectively, showed uniform and good optical transmittance of over 80% in the visible wavelength range from 380 [nm] to 780 [nm]. The optical catalyst characteristics of the $WO_3$ thin film were examined by investigating the optical absorbance and concentration variance in methylene blue, where the $WO_3$ thin film was immersed in the methylene blue. The catalytic characteristics improved with time. The concentration of methylene blue decreased to 80% after 5 hours, which confirms that the $WO_3$ thin film shows the characteristics of an optical catalyst. Using the reflector of a CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) and the lens of an LED (lighting emitting diode), it is possible to enhance the air cleaning effect of next-generation light sources.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.58-64
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• 2001

YSZ ($8mol\%$ yttria-stabilized zirconia)-modified LSM $(La_{0.85}Sr_{0.15}MnO_3)$ composite cathodes were fabricated by formation of YSZ film on triple phase boundary (TPB) of LSM/YSZ/gas. The YSZ coating film greatly enlarged electrochemical reaction sites from the increase of additional TPB. The composite cathode was formed on thin YSZ electrolyte (about 30 Um thickness) supported on an anode and then I-V characterization and AC impedance analyses were performed at temperature between $700^{\circ}C\;and\;800^{\circ}C$. As results of the impedance analysis on the cell at $800^{\circ}C$ with humidified hydrogen as the fuel and air as the oxidant, R1 around the frequency of 1000 Hz represents the anode Polarization. R2 around the frequency of 100Hz indicates the cathode polarization, and R3 below the frequency of 10 Hz is the resistance of gas phase diffusion through the anode. The cell with the composite cathode produced power density of $0.55\;W/cm^2\;and\;1W/cm^2$ at air and oxygen atmosphere, respectively. The I-V curve could be divided into two parts showing distinctive behavior. At low current density region (part I) the performance decreased steeply and at high current density region (part II) the performance decreased gradually. At the part I the performance decrease was especially resulted from the large cathode polarization, while at the part H the performance decrease related to the electrolyte polarization.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.100-101
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• 2012

The plasma damage free and room temperature processedthin film deposition technology is essential for realization of various next generation organic microelectronic devices such as flexible AMOLED display, flexible OLED lighting, and organic photovoltaic cells because characteristics of fragile organic materials in the plasma process and low glass transition temperatures (Tg) of polymer substrate. In case of directly deposition of metal oxide thin films (including transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS)) on the organic layers, plasma damages against to the organic materials is fatal. This damage is believed to be originated mainly from high energy energetic particles during the sputtering process such as negative oxygen ions, reflected neutrals by reflection of plasma background gas at the target surface, sputtered atoms, bulk plasma ions, and secondary electrons. To solve this problem, we developed the NBAS (Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering) process as a plasma damage free and room temperature processed sputtering technology. As a result, electro-optical properties of NBAS processed ITO thin film showed resistivity of $4.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}m$ and high transmittance (>90% at 550 nm) with nano- crystalline structure at room temperature process. Furthermore, in the experiment result of directly deposition of TCO top anode on the inverted structure OLED cell, it is verified that NBAS TCO deposition process does not damages to the underlying organic layers. In case of deposition of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film on the plastic polymer substrate, the room temperature processed sputtering coating of high quality TCO thin film is required. During the sputtering process with higher density plasma, the energetic particles contribute self supplying of activation & crystallization energy without any additional heating and post-annealing and forminga high quality TCO thin film. However, negative oxygen ions which generated from sputteringtarget surface by electron attachment are accelerated to high energy by induced cathode self-bias. Thus the high energy negative oxygen ions can lead to critical physical bombardment damages to forming oxide thin film and this effect does not recover in room temperature process without post thermal annealing. To salve the inherent limitation of plasma sputtering, we have been developed the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process as the high quality oxide thin film deposition process at room temperature. The MFSS process is effectively eliminate or suppress the negative oxygen ions bombardment damage by the plasma limiter which composed permanent magnet array. As a result, electro-optical properties of MFSS processed ITO thin film (resistivity $3.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, transmittance 95% at 550 nm) have approachedthose of a high temperature DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) ITO thin film were. Also, AOS (a-IGZO) TFTs fabricated by MFSS process without higher temperature post annealing showed very comparable electrical performance with those by DMS process with $400^{\circ}C$ post annealing. They are important to note that the bombardment of a negative oxygen ion which is accelerated by dc self-bias during rf sputtering could degrade the electrical performance of ITO electrodes and a-IGZO TFTs. Finally, we found that reduction of damage from the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment drives improvement of crystalline structure in the ITO thin film and suppression of the sub-gab states in a-IGZO semiconductor thin film. For realization of organic flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates, gas barrier coatings are required to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency flexible AMOLEDs needs an extremely low water vapor transition rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$. The key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required (under ${\sim}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$) is the suppression of nano-sized defect sites and gas diffusion pathways among the grain boundaries. For formation of high quality single inorganic gas barrier layer, we developed high density nano-structured Al2O3 single gas barrier layer usinga NBAS process. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to a nano- crystalline phase with various grain sizes in a single inorganic thin film. As a result, the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film have improved order of magnitude compared with that of conventional $Al_2O_3$ layers made by the RF magnetron sputteringprocess under the same sputtering conditions; the WVTR of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film was about $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ by just single layer.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.2 s.285
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• pp.85-91
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• 2006

Electron Beam Physical Vapor Deposition (EB-PVD) was applied to fabricate a thin film YSZ electrolyte with large area on the porous NiO-YSZ anode substrate. Microstructural and thermal stability of the as-deposited electrolyte film was investigated via SEM and XRD analysis. In order to obtain an optimized YSZ film with high stability, both temperature and surface roughness of substrate were varied. A structurally homogeneous YSZ film with large area of $12\times12\;cm^2$ and high thermal stability up to $900^{\circ}C$ was fabricated at the substrate temperature of $T_s/T_m$ higher than 0.4. The smoother surface was proved to give the better film quality. Precise control of heating and cooling rate of the anode substrate was necessary to obtain a very dense YSZ electrolyte with high thermal stability, which affords to survive after post heat treatment for fabrication a cathode layer on it as well as after long time operation of solid oxide fuel cell at high temperature.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.595-601
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• 2009

For the silicon oxide $(SiO_x)$ films prepared by using the facing target sputtering (FTS) apparatus that was manufactured to enhance the preciseness of the fabricated thin-film and sputtering yield rate by forming a higher-density plasma in the electrical discharge space for using it as a thin-film passivation system for flexible organic light emitting devices (FOLEDs). The deposition characteristics were investigated under various process conditions, such as array of the cathode magnets, oxygen concentration$(O_2/Ar+O_2)$ introduced during deposition, and variations of distance between two targets and working pressure. We report that the optimum conditions for our FTS apparatus for the deposition of the $SiO_x$ films are as follows: $d_{TS}\;and\;d_{TT}$ are 90mm and 120mm, respectively and the maximum deposition rate is obtained under a gas pressure of 2 mTorr with an oxygen concentration of 3.3%. Under this optimum conditions, it was found that the $SiO_x$ film was grown with a very high deposition rate of $250{\AA}$/min by rf-power of $4.4W/cm^2$, which was significantly enhanced as compared with a deposition rate (${\sim}55{\AA})$/min) of the conventional sputtering system. We also reported that the FTS system is a suitable method for the high speed and the low temperature deposition, the plasma free deposition, and the mass-production.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.79-90
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• 2007

Prototype of $800{\ell}$ vacuum web coater (Vic Mama) consisting of ion source with low energy less than 250 eV for high speed surface modification and 4 magnetron sputter cathodes was designed and constructed. Its performance was evaluated through fabricating the adhesiveless flexible copper clad laminate (FCCL). Pumping speed was monitored in both upper noncoating zone pumped down by 2 turbo pumps with 2000 l/sec pumping speed and lower surface modification and sputter zone vacuumed by turbo pumps with 450 1/sec and 1300 1/sec pumping speed respectively. Ion current density, plasma density, and uniformity of ion beam current were measured using Faraday cup and the distribution of magnetic field and erosion efficiency of sputter target were also investigated. With the irradiation of ion beams on polyimide (Kapton-E, $38{\mu}m$) at different fluences, the change of wetting angle of the deionized water to polyimide surface and those of surface chemical bonding were analyzed by wetting anglometer and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. After investigating the deposition rate of Ni-Cr tie layer and Cu layer was investigated with the variations of roll speed and input power to sputter cathode. FCCL fabricated by sputter and electrodeposition method and characterized in terms of the peel strength, thermal and chemical stability.

• 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.