• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
• /
• 2014.11a
• /
• pp.264-265
• /
• 2014

This Paper reports the photocatalytic activity of $g-C_3N_4/NaTaO_3$ hybrid composite photocatalysts synthesized by ball-mill method. The $g-C_3N_4$ and $NaTaO_3$ were individually prepared by Solid state reaction and microwave hydrothermal process, respectively. The $g-C_3N_4/NaTaO_3$ composite showed the enhanced photocatalytic activity for degradation of rhodamine B dye (Rh. B) under simulated solar light irradiation. The results revealed that the band-gap energy absorption edge of hybrid composite samples was shifted to a longer wavelength as compared to $NaTaO_3$ and the 50 wt% $g-C_3N_4/NaTaO_3$ hybrid composite exhibited the highest percentage (99.6 %) of degradation of Rh. B and the highest reaction rate constant ($0.013min^{-1}$) in 4 h which could be attributed to the enhanced absorption of the hybrid composite photocatalyst in the UV-Vis region. Hence, these results suggest that the $g-C_3N_4/NaTaO_3$ hybrid composite exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamine B under simulated solar light irradiation in comparison to the commercial $NaTaO_3$.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.57-61
• /
• 2004

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) have the crystal structure of wurtzite which is semiconducting oxide with band gap energy of 3.3eV. $In_2O_3$-doped ZnO films were fabricated by electron beam evaporation at $400^{\circ}C$ and their characteristics were investigated. The content of $In_2O_3$ in ZnO films had a marked effect on the electrical properties of the films. As $In_2O_3$ content decreased. $In_2O_3$-doped ZnO films was converted amorphous into crystallized films and showed a better characteristics generally as a transparent conducting oxide. As $In_2O_3$-doped ZnO films were prepared by $In_2O_3$-doped ZnO pellet with 0.2at% of $In_2O_3$ content, the value of resistivity was about $6.0 {\times} 10^{-3} {\Omega}cm$. The transmittance was higher than 85% throughout the visible range.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.318-325
• /
• 2008

Single crystal $ZnIn_2S_4$ layers were grown on thoroughly etched semi-insulating GaAs(100) substrate at $450^{\circ}C$ with hot wall epitaxy (HWE) system by evaporating $ZnIn_2S_4$ source at $610^{\circ}C$. The crystalline structure of the single crystal thin films was investigated by the photoluminescence (PL) and double crystal X-ray rocking curve (DCRC). The temperature dependence of the energy band gap of the $ZnIn_2S_4$ obtained from the absorption spectra was well described by the Varshni's relation, $E_g(T)=2.9514\;eV-(7.24{\times}10^{-4}\;eV/K)T^2/(T＋489\;K)$. After the as-grown $ZnIn_2S_4$ single crystal thin films were annealed in Zn-, S-, and In-atmospheres, the origin of point defects of $ZnIn_2S_4$ single crystal thin films has been investigated by the photoluminescence (PL) at 10 K. The native defects of $V_{Zn}$, $V_S$, $Zn_{int}$, and $S_{int}$ obtained by PL measurements were classified as a donors or acceptors type. And we concluded that the heat-treatment in the S-atmosphere converted $ZnIn_2S_4$ single crystal thin films to an optical p-type. Also, we confirmed that In in $ZnIn_2S_4$/GaAs did not form the native defects because In in $ZnIn_2S_4$ single crystal thin films existed in the form of stable bonds.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.359-365
• /
• 2013

We investigated the nanostructural, chemical and optical properties of nc-Si:H films according to deposition conditions. Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD) techniques were used to produce nc-Si:H thin films. The hydrogen dilution ratio in the precursors, [$SiH_4/H_2$], was fixed at 0.03; the substrate temperature was varied from room temperature to $600^{\circ}C$. By raising the substrates temperature up to $400^{\circ}C$, the nanocrystalite size was increased from ~2 to ~7 nm and the Si crystal volume fraction was varied from ~9 to ~45% to reach their maximum values. In high-resolution transmission electron microscopy(HRTEM) images, Si nanocrystallites were observed and the crystallite size appeared to correspond to the crystal size values obtained by X-ray diffraction(XRD) and Raman Spectroscopy. The intensity of high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy(EELS) peaks at ~99.9 eV(Si $L_{2,3}$ edge) was sensitively varied depending on the formation of Si nanocrystallites in the films. With increasing substrate temperatures, from room temperature to $600^{\circ}C$, the optical band gap of the nc-Si:H films was decreased from 2.4 to 1.9 eV, and the relative fraction of Si-H bonds in the films was increased from 19.9 to 32.9%. The variation in the nanostructural as well as chemical features of the films with substrate temperature appears to be well related to the results of the differential scanning calorimeter measurements, in which heat-absorption started at a substrate temperature of $180^{\circ}C$ and the maximum peak was observed at ${\sim}370^{\circ}C$.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.35 no.10
• /
• pp.3052-3058
• /
• 2014

In this article, we have designed and synthesized a novel donor-${\pi}$-acceptor (D-${\pi}$-A) type porphyrin-based sensitizer (denoted UI-5), in which a carboxyl anchoring group and a 9,9-dimethyl fluorene were introduced at the meso-positions of porphyrin ring via phenylethynyl and ethynyl bridging units, respectively. Long alkoxy chains in ortho-positions of the phenyls were supposed to reduce the degree of dye aggregation, which tends to affect electron injection yield in a photovoltaic cell. The cyclic voltammetry was employed to determine the band gap of UI-5 to be 1.41 eV based on the HOMO and LUMO energy levels, which were estimated by the onset oxidation and reduction potentials. The incident monochromatic photon-to-current conversion efficiency of the UI-5 DSSC assembled with double-layer (20 nm-sized $TiO_2$/400 nm-sized $TiO_2$) film electrodes appeared lower upon overall ranges of the excitation wavelengths, but exhibited a higher value over the NIR ranges (${\lambda}$ = 650-700 nm) compared to the common reference sensitizer N719. The UI-5-sensitized cell yielded a relatively poor device performance with an overall conversion efficiency of 0.74% with a short circuit photocurrent density of $3.05mA/cm^2$, an open circuit voltage of 0.54 mV and a fill factor of 0.44 under the standard global air mass (AM 1.5) solar conditions. However, our report about the synthesis and the photovoltaic characteristics of a porphyrin-based sensitizer in a D-${\pi}$-A structure demonstrated a significant complex relationship between the sensitizer structure and the cell performance.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2012.05a
• /
• pp.99.1-99.1
• /
• 2012

The thin-film photovoltaic absorbers (CdTe and $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$) can achieve solar conversion efficiencies of up to 20% and are now commercially available, but the presence of toxic (Cd,Se) and expensive elemental components (In, Te) is a real issue as the demand for photovoltaics rapidly increases. To overcome these limitations, there has been substantial interest in developing viable alternative materials, such as $Cu_2ZnSnS_4$ (CZTS) is an emerging solar absorber that is structurally similar to CIGS, but contains only earth abundant, non-toxic elements and has a near optimal direct band gap energy of 1.4 - 1.6 eV and a large absorption coefficient of ~104 $cm^{-1}$. The CZTS absorber layers are grown and investigated by various fabrication methods, such as thermal evaporation, e-beam evaporation with a post sulfurization, sputtering, non-vacuum sol-gel, pulsed laser, spray-pyrolysis method and electrodeposition technique. In the present work, we report an alternative aqueous chemical approach based on chemical bath deposition (CBD) method for large area deposition of CZTS thin films. Samples produced by our method were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, absorbance and photoluminescence. The results show that this inexpensive and relatively benign process produces thin films of CZTS exhibiting uniform composition, kesterite crystal structure, and some factors like triethanolamine, ammonia, temperature which strongly affect on the morphology of CZTS film.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.15 no.8
• /
• pp.491-495
• /
• 2005

(Zn,Mg)O (ZMO) thin films doped with Ga $(0\~0.03mol\%)$ in the target source were prepared by pulsed laser deposition on c-plane sapphire substrates at $500^{\circ}C$, and the effect of Ga contents on the properties of the electrical, optical and crystal properties of the deposited films was investigated. From X-ray diffraction patterns, ZMO film doped with $0.02 mol\%$ Ga showed crystal structure with c-axis preferred orientation, showing only the (0002) and (0004) diffraction peaks. In contrast, ZMO film doped with $Ga=0.03 mol\%$ showed a randomly oriented crystal structure. All the samples were highly transparent, showing the transmittance values of above $85\%$ in the visible region. For all the Ga doped ZMO films, the value of energy band gap was found to be about 3.5 eV, regardless of their Ga contents. From the Hall measurements, the resistivity and the carrier density for the ZMO film doped with $0.01 mol\%$ Ga were about $5\times10^{-4}\Omega-cm$ and $2\times10^{21}cm^{-3}$, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.461-461
• /
• 2013

Over the last decade, zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films have attracted considerable attention owing to large band gap of 3.37 eV and large exciton binding energy of 60 meV at room temperature [1-3]. Recent interest in ZnO related researches has been switched into the fabrication and characterization of low-dimensional nanostructures, such as nano-wires and nano-dots that can be applicable to manufacture the optoelectronic devices such as ultraviolet lasers, light-emitting-diodes and detectors. Since the optical properties of ZnO nano-structures might be distinct from those of bulk materials or thin films, the low-dimensional phenomena should be examined further. In order to utilize such advanced optoelectronic devices, one of the challenges is how to control the surface state related emissions that are drastically increased with increasing the density of the nano-structures and the surface-to-volume ratio. This paper reports the synthesis and characterization of self-assembled ZnO hexagonal nano-disks grown by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering. X-ray diffraction data and scanning electron microscopy data showed that ZnO hexagonal nano-disks were nucleated on top of the flat surfaces as the film thickness reached to 1.56 ${\mu}m$ and then the number of nano-disks increased with increasing the film thickness. The lateral size of hexagonal nano-disks was ~720 nm and height was ~74 nm. The strong photo luminescence spectra obtained at 10 K was also observed, which was assigned to a surface exciton emission at 3.3628 eV arising from the surface sites of hexagonal nano-disks.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.274-284
• /
• 2001

A stoichimetric mixture of evaporating materials for $AgInS_2$ single crystal thin films was prepared from horizontal furnace. To obtain the single crystal thin films. $AgInS_2$mixed crystal was deposited on thorughly etched semi-insulating GaAs(100) substrate by the Hot wall Epitaxy (HWE) system. The source and substrate temperatures were $680^{\circ}C$ and $410^{\circ}C$, respectively. The crystalline structure of the single thin films was investigated by the photoluminescence and double crystal X-ray diffraction(DCXD). The carrier density and mobility of $AgInS_2$ single crystal the films measured from Hall effect by van der Pauw method are $9.35\times 10^{16}/\terxtm{cm}^3$ and $294\terxtm{cm}^2$/V.s at 293 K, respectively. From the optical absorption measurement the temperature dependence of the energy band gap on AgInS$_2$ single crystal thin film was found to be $E_g$(T)= 2.1365eV-($9.89\times 10^{-3}eV/T^2$/(2930+T). After the as-grown $AgInS_2$ single crystal thin films was annealed in $Ag^-S^-$ and In-atmospheres, the origin of point defects of AgInS$_2$ single crystal the films has been investigated by using the photoluminescence(PL) at 10K. The native defects of $V_{Ag},V_s, Ag_{int}$ and $S_{int}$ int/ obtained from PL measurements were classified as a donors or acceptors type. And we concluded that the heat-treatment in the S-atmosphere converted $AgInS_2$ single crystal thin films to an optical p-type. Also, we confirmed that In in $AgInS_2$ /GaAs did not form the native defects because In is $AgInS_2$ single crystal thin films did exist in the form of stable bonds.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.31 no.10
• /
• pp.2849-2853
• /
• 2010

A method to improve the photocatalytic activity of titanium dioxide by modification with a sensitizer and a metal oxide is proposed. To achieve this goal, we used metal oxides as dopants. In particular, $CaWO_4$ and $Gd_2O_2S$:Tb were used because their 2.6 eV and 2.2 eV band gap energy and optical properties have a large positive effect on photocatalysis. The improvement in the photocatalytic activity of $TiO_2$ modified with $Gd_2O_2S$:Tb under ultraviolet light irradiation is described in a previous study. The present work focuses on the sensitization of metal oxide-modified $TiO_2$. Having observed the ultraviolet-visible absorption spectra of 3,4,9,10-Perylenetetracarboxylic diimide in the wide visible-light region from 400 nm to 650 nm and the broad peaks in its photoluminescence spectra at 695 nm and 717 nm, we decided to use this perylene dye to sensitize modified $TiO_2$ to enhance its activity as a visible-light harvesting photocatalyst. We also explored the positive effects thin-film surface changes stemming from ultraviolet pre-treatment have on photocatalytic activity. Finally, we subjected several metal oxide-modified $TiO_2$ products sensitized by the perylene dye to ultraviolet pre-treatment, obtaining the most active photocatalysts.