• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.1983-1987
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• 2008

This study demonstrates the electrochemical conversion of the synthetic procedure of monolayer-protected clusters using a thin toluene layer over an edge plane pyrolytic graphite electrode. A thin toluene layer with a thickness of 0.31 mm was coated over the electrode and an immiscible liquid/liquid water/toluene interface was introduced. The transfer of the tetrachloroaurate ($AuCl_4^-$) ions into the toluene layer interposed between the aqueous solution and the electrode surface was electrochemically monitored. The $AuCl_4^-$ ions initially could not move through into the toluene layer, showing no reduction wave, but, in the presence of the phase transfer reagent, tetraoctylammonium bromide (TOABr), a cathodic wave at 0.23 V vs. Ag/AgCl was observed, indicating the reduction of the transferred $AuCl_4^-$ ions in the toluene layer. In the presence of dodecanethiol together with TOABr, a self-assembled monolayer was formed over the electro-deposited metallic gold surface. The E-SEM image of the surface indicates the formation of a highly porous metallic gold surface, rather than individual nanoparticles, over the EPG electrode.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.84.2-84.2
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• 2011

In this research, two thin film deposition techniques, Atomic Layer Deposition and Sputtering are carried out for the fabrication of Yittria Stabilized Zirconia electrolyte for thin film Solid Oxide Fuel Cell. Zirconium to Yittrium ratio for both cases is about 1/8. Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) image shows that the growth rate per hour for Atomic Layer Deposition is faster than for sputtering. X-ray Photo-electron Spectroscopy(XPS) shows that the peaks of both Zirconia and Yittria shift towards higher bending energy for the case of Atomic Layer deposition and thus are more strongly attached to the substrate. Later, Nyquist plot was used to compare the conductivity of Yittria Stabilized Electrolyte for both cases. The conductivity at $300^{\circ}C$ for Atomic Layer Deposited Yittria Stabilized Zirconia is found to be $5{\times}10^{-4}S/cm$ while that for sputtered Yittria Stabilized Zirconia is $2{\times}10^{-5}S/cm$ at the same temperature. The reason for better performance for Atomic Layered YSZ is believed to be the Nano-structured layer fabrication that aids in along the plane conduction as compared to the columnarly structured Sputtered YSZ.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.505-509
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• 2016

We have investigated the characteristics of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film solar cell by inserting barrier layer. The conversion efficiency of a-Si thin-film solar cells on graphite substrate shows nearly zero because of the surface roughness of the graphite substrate. To enhance the performance of solar cells, the surface morphology of the back side were modified by changing the barrier layer on graphite. The surface roughness of graphite substrate with the barrier layer grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reduced from ~2 um to ~75 nm. In this study, the combination of the barrier layer on graphite substrate is important to increase solar cell efficiency. We achieved ~ 7.8% cell efficiency for an a-Si thin-film solar cell on graphite substrate with SiNx/SiOx stack barrier layer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.715-719
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• 2014

(PDDA/$SiO_2$) thin films that consisted of positively charged poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) and negatively charged $SiO_2$ nanoparticles were fabricated on a glass substrate by an applying voltage layer-by-layer (LBL) self-assembly method. In this study, the microstructure and optical properties of the (PDDA/$SiO_2$) thin films coated on glass substrate were measured as a function of the applied voltage on the Pt electrodes. When 1.0 V was applied to a Pt electrode in a PDDA and $SiO_2$ solution, the thickness of the $(PDDA/SiO_2)_{10}$ thin film increased from 79 nm to 166 nm. The surface roughness also increased from 15.21 nm to 33.25 nm because the adsorption volume of the oppositely charged PDDA and $SiO_2$ solution increased. Especially, when the voltage was applied to the Pt electrode in the $SiO_2$ solution, the thickness increase of the (PDDA/$SiO_2$) thin film was larger than that obtained when using the PDDA solution. The refractive index of the fabricated (PDDA/$SiO_2$) thin film was ca. n = 1.31~1.32. The transmittance of the glass substrate coated by (PDDA/$SiO_2$)6 thin film with a thickness of 106 nm increased from ca. 91.37 to 95.74% in the visible range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.267-270
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• 2003

We have studied the interfacial diffusion phenomena and the role of ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ buffer layer as a diffusion barrier in the $Ba-ferrite/SiO_2$ magnetic thin films for high-density recording media. In the interface of amorphous Ba-ferrite ($1900-{\AA}-thick)/SiO_2$ thin film during annealing, the interfacial diffusion started to occur at ${\sim}700^{\circ}C$. As the annealing temperature increased up to $800^{\circ}C$, the interfacial diffusion abruptly proceeded resulting in the high interface roughness and the deterioration of the magnetic properties. In order to control the interfacial diffusion at the high temperature, we introduced ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ buffer layer ($110-{\AA}-thick$) in the interface of $Ba-ferrite/SiO_2$ thin film. During the annealing of $Ba-ferrite/{\alpha}-Al_2O_3/SiO_2$ thin film even at ${\sim}800^{\circ}C$, the interface was very smooth. The smooth interface of the film was also clearly shown by the cross-sectional FESEM. The magnetic properties, such as saturation magnetization 3nd intrinsic coercivity, were also enhanced, due to the inhibition of interfacial diffusion by the ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ buffer layer. Our study suggests that the ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ buffer layer act as a useful interfacial diffusion barrier in the $Ba-ferrite/SiO_2$ thin films.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.106.1-106.1
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• 2011

The Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin film solar cells have been achieved until almost 20% efficiency by NREL. These solar cells include chemically deposited CdS as buffer layer between CIGS absorber layer and ZnO window layer. Although CIGS solar cells with CdS buffer layer show excellent performance, the short wavelength response of CIGS solar cell is limited by narrow CdS band gap of about 2.42 eV. Taking into consideration the environmental aspect, the toxic Cd element should be replaced by a different material. Among Cd-free candidate materials, the CIGS thin film solar cells with ZnS buffer layer seem to be promising with 17.2%(module by showa shell K.K.), 18.6%(small area by NREL). However, ZnS/CIGS solar cells still show lower performance than CdS/CIGS solar cells. There are several reported reasons to reduce the efficiency of ZnS/CIGS solar cells. Nakada reported ZnS thin film had many defects such as stacking faults, pin-holes, so that crytallinity of ZnS thin film is poor, compared to CdS thin film. Additionally, it was known that the hetero-interface between ZnS and CIGS layer made unfavorable band alignment. The unfavorable band alignment hinders electron transport at the heteo-interface. In this study, we focused on growing defect-free ZnS thin film and for favorable band alignment of ZnS/CIGS, bandgap of ZnS and CIGS, valece band structure of ZnS/CIGS were modified. Finally, we verified the photovoltaic properties of ZnS/CIGS solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.434-436
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• 2013

Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) was substitutes of the SnO2:F films on soda lime glass substrate in the photovoltaic devices such as CIGS, CdTe and DSSC due to good properties and low cost. However, it was reported that the electrical resistivity of GZO is unstable above $300^{\circ}C$ in air atmosphere. To improve thermal stability of GZO thin films at high temperature above $300^{\circ}C$ an $TiO_2$ thin film was deposited on the top of GZO thin films as a barrier layer by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) method. $TiO_2$ thin films were deposited at various thicknesses from 25 nm to 100 nm. Subsequently, these films were annealed at temperature of $300^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$, $500^{\circ}C$ in air atmosphere for 20 min. The XRD measurement results showed all the films had a preferentially oriented ( 0 0 2 ) peak, and the intensity of ( 0 0 2 ) peak nearly did not change both GZO (300 nm) single layer and $TiO_2$ (50 nm)/GZO (300 nm) double layer. The resistivity of GZO (300 nm) single layer increased from $7.6{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}m$ (RT) to $7.7{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}m$ ($500^{\circ}C$). However, in the case of the $TiO_2$ (50 nm)/GZO (300 nm) double layer, resistivity showed small change from $7.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}m$ (RT) to $5.2{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}m$ ($500^{\circ}C$). Meanwhile, the average transmittance of all the films exceeded 80% in the visible spectrum, which suggests that these films will be suitable for photovoltaic devices.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.168-172
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• 2010

Superhydrophilic thin film consisted of positively charged poly (allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) and negatively charged poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) was fabricated by a layer-by-layer (LBL) self-assembly. Glutaraldehyde (GA) was used in order to increase an adhesion hardness by amine-aldehyde reaction. The surface morphology, thickness, transmittance, water contact angle and adhesion hardness of PAH/PAA thin film with or without GA were measured. The adhesion hardness of PAH/PAA thin film with GA deposition increased over 2 times although the film thickness of PAH/GA/PAA decreased than that of PAH/PAA thin film. The increase of adhesion hardness by amine-aldehyde reaction between PAH and GA was measured by fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Fabricated PAH/PAA and PAH/GA/PAA thin films showed water contact angel under $5^{\circ}$ and high transmittance over 91.3% at 550 nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.77-80
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• 2001

Crystallographic and magnetic characteristics of CoCr-based magnetic thin film for perpendicular magnetic recording media were influenced on preparing conditions. In these, there is that substrate temperature was parameter that increases perpendicular coercivity of CoCrTa magnetic layer using recording layer. While preparation of CoCr-based doublelayer, by optimizing substrate temperature, we expect to increase perpendicular anisotropy of CoCr magnetic layer and prepare ferromagnetic recording layer with a good quality by epitaxial growth. CoCrTa/Si doublelayer showed a good dispersion angle of c-axis orientation $\Delta\theta_{50}$ caused by inserting amorphous Si underlayer which prepared at underlayer substrate temperature 250C. Perpendicular coercivity was constant, in-plane coercivity was controlled a low value about 200Oe. This result implied that Si underlayer could restrain growth of initial layer of CoCrTa thin film, which showed bad magnetic properties effectively without participating magnetization patterns of magnetic layer. In case of CoCrTa/Si that prepared with ultra thin underlayer, crystalline orientation of CoCrTa was improved rather underlayer thickness 1nm, it was expected that amorphous Si layer played a important role in not only underlayer but also seed layer.