• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.18 no.10
• /
• pp.552-556
• /
• 2008

Modified thermal annealing was applied to the activation of the polycrystalline silicon films doped as p-type through implantation of $B_2H_6$. The statistical design of experiments was successfully employed to investigate the effect of rapid thermal annealing on activation of polycrystalline Si doped as p-type. In this design, the input variables are furnace temperature, power of halogen lamps, and alternating magnetic field. The degree of ion activation was evaluated as a function of processing variables, using Hall effect measurements and Raman spectroscopy. The main effects were estimated to be furnace temperature and RTA power in increasing conductivity, explained by recrystallization of doped ions and change of an amorphous Si into a crystalline Si lattice. The ion activation using rapid thermal annealing is proven to be a highly efficient process in low temperature polycrystalline Si technology.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2006.06a
• /
• pp.228-231
• /
• 2006

This paper briefly introduces silicon based thin film solar cells: amorphous (a-Si:H), microcrystalline ${\mu}c-Si:H$ single junction and $a-Si:H/{\mu}c-Si:H$ tandem solar cells. The major difference of a-Si:H and ${\mu}c-Si:H$ cells comes from electro-optical properties of intrinsic Si-films (active layer) that absorb incident photon and generate electron-hole pairs. The a-Si:H film has energy band-gap (Eg) of 1.7-1.8eV and solar cells incorporating this wide Eg a-Si:H material as active layer commonly give high voltage and low current, when illuminated, compared to ${\mu}c-Si:H$ solar cells that employ low Eg (1.1eV) material. This Eg difference of two materials make possible tandem configuration in order to effectively use incident photon energy. The $a-Si:H/{\mu}c-Si:H$ tandem solar cells, therefore, have a great potential for low cost photovoltaic device by its various advantages such as low material cost by thin-film structure on low cost substrate instead of expensive c-Si wafer and high conversion efficiency by tandem structure. In this paper, the structure, process and operation properties of Si-based thin-film solar cells are discussed.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.95-99
• /
• 2013

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thick films with a thickness of $10-20{\mu}m$ were fabricated on silicone substrates using an aerosol deposition method. The starting powder, which had diameters of $1-2{\mu}m$, was observed using SEM. The average diameter ($d_{50}$) was $1.1{\mu}m$. An XRD analysis showed a typical perovskite structure, a mixture of the tetragonal phase and rhombohedral phase. The as-deposited film with nano-sized grains had a fairly dense microstructure without any cracks. The deposited film showed a mixture of an amorphous phase and a very fine crystalline phase by diffraction pattern analysis using TEM. The as-deposited films on silicon were annealed at a temperature of $700^{\circ}C$. A 20-${\mu}m$ thick PZT film was torn out as a result of the high compressive stress between the PZT film and substrate.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
• /
• v.48 no.7
• /
• pp.660-666
• /
• 2010

30 nm thick Ni layers were deposited on a glass substrate by e-beam evaporation. Subsequently, 30 nm or 60 nm ${\alpha}-Si:H$ layers were grown at low temperatures ($<220^{\circ}C$) on the 30 nm Ni/Glass substrate by catalytic CVD (chemical vapor deposition). The sheet resistance, phase, microstructure, depth profile and surface roughness of the $\alpha-Si:H$ layers were examined using a four-point probe, HRXRD (high resolution Xray diffraction), Raman Spectroscopy, FE-SEM (field emission-scanning electron microscopy), TEM (transmission electron microscope) and AES depth profiler. The Ni layers reacted with Si to form NiSi layers with a low sheet resistance of $10{\Omega}/{\Box}$. The crystallinty of the $\alpha-Si:H$ layers on NiSi was up to 60% according to Raman spectroscopy. These results show that both nano-scale NiSi layers and crystalline Si layers can be formed simultaneously on a Ni deposited glass substrate using the proposed low temperature catalytic CVD process.

• Journal of the Korean Physical Society
• /
• v.73 no.9
• /
• pp.1279-1282
• /
• 2018

This paper reports the deposition of a metal line using a multilayer stack and laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) using a low cost continuous wave blue laser with a wavelength of 450 nm. The donor structure was composed of a light-to-heat (LTH) layer, a release layer, and a transfer layer in series. Amorphous silicon as the LTH layer absorbs photon energy and converts it to heat. A release layer was melted so that a silver transfer layer would be transferred to the receiver substrate. The transferred silver layer showed reasonable physical and electrical characteristics. A low cost fine linewidth metal layer could be achieved using this modified LIFT technique and blue laser.

• Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
• /
• v.68
• /
• pp.173-179
• /
• 2018

Electrochemical characterization was conducted on poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-ceramic composite (PVA-CC) separators for supercapacitor applications. The PVA-CC separators were fabricated by mixing various ceramic particles including aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$), silicon dioxide ($SiO_2$), and titanium dioxide ($TiO_2$) into a PVA aqueous solution. These ceramic particles help to create amorphous regions in the crystalline structure of the polymer matrix to increase the ionic conductivity of PVA. Supercapacitors were assembled using PVA-CC separators with symmetric activated carbon electrodes and electrochemical characterization showed enhanced specific capacitance, rate capability, cycle life, and ionic conductivity. Supercapacitors using the $PVA-TiO_2$ composite separator showed particularly good electrochemical performance with a 14.4% specific capacitance increase over supercapacitors using the bare PVA separator after 1000 cycles. With regards to safety, PVA becomes plasticized when immersed in 6 M KOH aqueous solution, thus there was no appreciable loss in tear resistance when the ceramic particles were added to PVA. Thus, the enhanced electrochemical properties can be attained without reduction in safety making the addition of ceramic nanoparticles to PVA separators a cost-effective strategy for increasing the ionic conductivity of separator materials for supercapacitor applications.

• Solar Energy
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.11-20
• /
• 2000

To get more insight into the buffering effects of the p-${\mu}c$-Si:H Inserted at the p-a-SiC:H/i-a-Si:H interface, we present a systematic numerical simulation using Gummel-Schafetter method. The reduced recombination loss at the p/i interface due to a constant bandgap buffer is analysed in terms of the variation of the p/i Interface region with a short lifetime and the characterisitics of the buffer such as mobility bandgap, acceptor concentration, and D-state density. The numerical modeling on the constant bandgap buffer demonstrates clearly that the buffering effects of the thin p-${\mu}c$-Si:H originate from the shrinkage of highly defective region with a short lifetime in the vicinity of the p/i interface.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.133-138
• /
• 2019

The a-InGaZnO (a-IGZO) thin film transistor (TFT) has the advantages of larger mobility than that of amorphous silicon TFTs, acceptable reliability and uniformity over a large area, and low process cost. A capacitive-type touch sensor was studied with an a-IGZO TFT that can be used on the front side of a display due to its transparency. A capacitive sensor detects changes of capacitance between the surface of the finger and the sensor electrode. The capacitance varies according to the distance between the sensor plate and the touching or non-touching of the sensing electrode. A capacitive touch sensor using only one a-IGZO TFT was developed with the reduction of two bus lines, which made it easy to reduce the pixel pitch. The proposed sensor circuit maintained the amplification performance, which was investigated for various drive conditions.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.31 no.6
• /
• pp.697-700
• /
• 2020

We report the synthesis and characterization of quartz nanocrystals (NCs). Quartz NCs were synthesized from the dissolution of amorphous silica nanoparticle precursors under the mild hydrothermal condition of ~250 ℃ and autogenic pressure. It was confirmed that the average size of the nanostructure with a highly crystalline phase of α-quartz can be tuned in a relatively narrow range from 407.5 to 826.2 nm with respect to the reaction time. α-Quartz NCs have potential uses for technological applications in optoelectronics, sensing, and rechargeable battery devices.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.20 no.6
• /
• pp.289-293
• /
• 2010

Silicon quantum dots (Si QDs) in a superlattice for high efficiency tandem solar cells were fabricated by magnetron rf sputtering and their characteristics were investigated. SiC/$Si_{1-x}C_x$ superlattices were deposited by co-sputtering of Si and C targets and annealed at $1000^{\circ}C$ for 20 minutes in a nitrogen atmosphere. The Si QDs in Si-rich layers were verified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction. The size of the QDs was observed to be 3-6 nm through high resolution TEM. Some crystal Si and -SiC peaks were clearly observed in the grazing incident X-ray diffractogram. Raman spectroscopy in the annealed sample showed a sharp peak at $516\;cm^{-1}$ which is an indication of Si QDs. Based on the Raman shift the size of the QD was estimated to be 4-6 nm. The volume fraction of Si crystals was calculated to be about 33%. The change of the FT-IR absorption spectrum from a Gaussian shape to a Lorentzian shape also confirmed the phase transition from an amorphous phase before annealing to a crystalline phase after annealing. The optical absorption coefficient also decreased, but the optical band gap increased from 1.5 eV to 2.1 eV after annealing. Therefore, it is expected that the optical energy gap of the QDs can be controlled with growth and annealing conditions.