• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.2743-2750
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• 2011

Lanthanide(III)-cored complex as a wavelength conversion material has been successfully designed and synthesized for highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells, for the first time, since light with a short wavelength has not been effectively used for generating electric power owing to the limited absorption of these DSSCs in the UV region. A black dye (BD) was chosen and used as a sensitizer, because BD has a relatively weak light absorption at shorter wavelengths. The overall conversion efficiency of the BD/WCM device was remarkably increased, even with the relatively small amount of WCM added to the device. The enhancement in $V_{oc}$ by WCM, like DCA, could be correlated with the suppression of electron recombination between the injected electrons and $I_3{^-}$ ions. Furthermore, the short-circuit current density was significantly increased by WCM with a strong UV light-harvesting effect. The energy transfer from the Eu(III)-cored complex to the $TiO_2$ film occurred via the dye, so the number of electrons injected into the $TiO_2$ surface increased, i.e., the short-circuit current density was increased. As a result, BD/WCM-sensitized solar cells exhibit superior device performance with the enhanced conversion efficiency by a factor of 1.22 under AM 1.5 sunlight: The photovoltaic performance of the BD/WCM-based DSSC exhibited remarkably high values, $J_{sc}$ of 17.72 mA/$cm^2$, $V_{oc}$ of 720 mV, and a conversion efficiency of 9.28% at 100 mW $cm^{-2}$, compared to a standard DSSC with $J_{sc}$ of 15.53 mA/$cm^2$, $V_{oc}$ of 689 mV, and a conversion efficiency of 7.58% at 100 mW $cm^{-2}$. Therefore, the Eu(III)-cored complex is a promising candidate as a new wavelength conversion coadsorbent for highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells to improve UV light harvesting through energy transfer processes. The abstract should be a single paragraph which summaries the content of the article.

• Proceedings of the Polymer Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.65-66
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• 2006

[ $TiO_2$ ] single crystalline nanorods are prepared from electrospun fibers which are composed of nanofibrils with an island-in-a-sea morphology. The mechanical pressure produces each fibril into nanorods which are converted to anatase single crystals after calcinations. HRTEM shows that the (001) plane is growing along the longitudinal direction of the rod. In this work, the nanorod electrode provides the efficient photocurrent generation in a quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using highly viscous PVDF-HFP based gel electrolytes. The overall converision efficiency of the $TiO_2$ nanorods shows 6.2 % under $100\;mW/cm^2$ (AM 1.5G) illumination.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1188-1194
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• 2013

Transparent $TiO_2$ thin films have been prepared by sol-gel spin coating method. The sols used for deposition of thin films were prepared with different ethanol content. The effect of ethanol (solvent) concentration and annealing temperature on the performance of $TiO_2$ thin film solar cells has been studied. The results indicate that the as deposited films are amorphous in nature. $TiO_2$ thin films annealed at temperatures above $350^{\circ}C$ exhibited crystalline nature with anatase phase. The results also indicated that the crystallinity of the films improved with increase of annealing temperature. The high resolution transmission electron microscope images showed lattice fringes corresponding to the anatase phase of $TiO_2$. The band gap of the deposited films has been found to decrease with increase in annealing temperature and increase with increase in ethanol concentration. The dependents of photovoltaic efficiency of the dye-sensitized $TiO_2$ thin film solar cells (DSSCs) with the amount of ethanol used to prepare thin films was determined from photocurrent-voltage curves.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.88.1-88.1
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• 2010

Organic dyes, because of their many advantages, such as high molar extinction coefficients, convenience of customized molecular design for desired photophysical and photochemical properties, inexpensiveness with no transition metals contained, and environment-friendliness, are suitable as photosensitizers for the Dye-sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC). The efficiency of DSSC based on metal-free organic dyes is known to be much lower than that of Ru dyes generally, but a high solar energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency of up to 8% in full sunlight has been achieved by Ito et al. using an indoline dye. This result suggests that smartly designed and synthesized metal-free organic dyes are also highly competitive candidates for photosensitizers of DSSCs with their advantages mentioned above. Recently, the performance of DSSC based on metal-free organic dyes has been remarkably improved by several groups. We had reported the novel organic dye with double electron acceptor chromophore, which was a new strategy to design an efficient photosensitizer for DSSC. To verify the strategy, we synthesized organic dyes whose geometries, electronic structures and optical properties were derived from preceding density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations. In this paper, we successfully synthesized the chromophore containing multi-acceptor push-pull system from triphenylamine with thiophene moieties as a bridge unit. Organic dyes with a single electron acceptor and double acceptor system were also synthesized for comparison purposes. The photovoltaic performances of these dyes were compared, and the recombination dark current curves and the incident photon-to-current (IPCE) efficiencies were also measured in order to characterize the effects of the multi-anchoring groups on the open-circuit voltage and the short-circuit current. In order to match specifications required for practical applications to be implemented outdoors, light soaking and thermal stability tests of these DSSCs, performed under $100mWcm^{-2}$ and $60^{\circ}C$ for 1000h.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.318.2-318.2
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• 2013

기존의 염료감응형 태양전지(Dye Sensitized Solar Cells; DSSCs)는 최대 효율 11~12%의 광전변환효율을 가지고 있다. 이러한 한계를 극복하기 위해서 광흡수 층 최적화, 상대전극의 촉매성 증대, 전해질의 산화 환원 반응 최적화 등의 많은 연구가 이루어지고 있다. 본 연구에서는 DSSCs의 광전변환효율을 증가시키고자 기존의 투명전극 및 기판으로 사용되는 FTO(Fluor-doped Tin Oxide)를 GZO(Gallium-doped Zinc Oxide)를 사용하여 투명전극기판에 따른 계면 저항, 전류손실 등 DSSCs에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 본 연구에 사용된 FTO는 ${\sim}7{\Omega}/{\square}$의 면저항과 80%이상의 투과도를 갖고 있으나 Ion-Sputtering 법으로 증착된 GZO는 열처리 과정을 통하여 $3{\sim}4{\Omega}/{\square}$의 면 저항을 나타내고 80%이상의 우수한 투과도를 가지고 있다. 이러한 두 기판의 특성 비교를 위해, UV-Visble Spectrophotometer를 사용하여 광학적 특성을 분석하고, SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope), AFM(Atomic Force Microscope)를 사용하여 표면 특성을 평가하였다. 또한 전기적 특성을 분석하기 위하여 4-Point-probe를 이용하여 면 저항을 측정하였고, DSSCs의 효율 및 Fill Factor를 분석하기 위하여 Solar Simulator의 I-V measurement를 이용하였다.

• Rubber Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

Click chemistry had enjoyed a wealthy decade after it was introduced by K.B.Sharpless and his co-worker on 2001. Since there is no optimized method for synthesis of click polymer, therefore, this paper introduced three click reaction methods such as catalyst, non-catalyst and azide-end capping for fluorene-based functional click polymers. The obtained polymers have reasonable molecular weight with narrow PDI. The polymers are thermally stable and almost emitted blue light emission. The synthesized fluorene-based functional click polymers were characterized to compare the effect of click reaction methods on polymer electro-optical properties as well as device performance on quasi-solid-state dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) applications. The DSSCs with configuration of $SnO_2:F/TiO_2/N719$ dye/quasi-solid-state electrolyte/Pt devices were fabricated using these click polymers as a solid-state electrolyte components. Among the devices, the catalyzed click polymer composed device exhibited a high power conversion efficiency of 4.62% under AM 1.5G illumination ($100mW/cm^2$).These click polymers are promising materials in device application and $Cu^I$-catalyst 1, 3-dipolar cycloaddition click reaction is an efficient synthetic methodology.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.250-257
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• 2016

Octahedral $Co_3O_4$/carbon nanofiber (CNF) composites are fabricated using electrospinning and hydrothermal methods. Their morphological characteristics, chemical bonding states, and electrochemical properties are used to demonstrate the improved photovoltaic properties of the samples. Octahedral $Co_3O_4$ grown on CNFs is based on metallic Co nanoparticles acting as seeds in the CNFs, which seeds are directly related to the high performance of DSSCs. The octahedral $Co_3O_4$/CNFs composites exhibit high photocurrent density ($12.73mA/m^2$), superb fill factor (62.1 %), and excellent power conversion efficiency (5.61 %) compared to those characteristics of commercial $Co_3O_4$, conventional CNFs, and metallic Co-seed/CNFs. These results can be described as stemmnig from the synergistic effect of the porous and graphitized matrix formed by catalytic graphitization using the metal cobalt catalyst on CNFs, which leads to an increase in the catalytic activity for the reduction of triiodide ions. Therefore, octahedral $Co_3O_4$/CNFs composites can be used as a counter electrode for Pt-free dye-sensitized solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.362-366
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• 2014

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were synthesized using a $0.25cm^2$ area of a $TiO_2$ nanoparticle layer as the electrode and platinum (Pt) as the counter electrode. The $TiO_2$ nanoparticle layers (12 to 22 ${\mu}m$) were screen-printed on fluorine-doped tin oxide glass. Glancing angle X-ray diffraction results indicated that the $TiO_2$ layer is composed of pure anatase with no traces of rutile $TiO_2$. The Pt counter electrode and the ruthenium dye anchored $TiO_2$ electrode were then assembled. The best photovoltaic performance of DSSC, which consists of a $18{\mu}m$ thick $TiO_2$ nanoparticle layer, was observed at a short circuit current density ($J_{sc}$) of $14.68mA{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, an open circuit voltage ($V_{oc}$) of 0.72V, a fill factor (FF) of 63.0%, and an energy conversion efficiency (${\eta}$) of 6.65%. It can be concluded that the electrode thickness is attributed to the energy conversion efficiency of DSSCs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.28-28
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• 2010

Photoelectrochemical solar cells such as dye-sensitized cells (DSSCs), which exhibit high performance and are cost-effective, provide an alternative to conventional p-n junction photovoltaic devices. However, the efficiency of such cells plateaus at 11-12%, in contrast to their theoretical value of 33%. Improvements in efficiency can only occur through a fundamental understanding of the underlying physics, materials, and device designs of DSSCs. A photoelectrode consisting of semiconducting oxide nanoparticles and a transparent conducting oxide electrode (TCO) is a key component of DSSC and design of photoelectrode materials is one of promising strategies to improving energy conversion efficiency. We introduce monodisperesed $TiO_2$ nanoparticles prepared by forced hydrolysis method and their superiority as photoelectrode materials was characterized with aids of optical and electrochemical analysis. Multi-layered TCO materials are also introduced and their feasibility for use as photoelectrodes is discussed in terms of optical absorption and charge collecting properties.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.177-181
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• 2012

Dye-sensitized solar cells(DSSCs) based on $TiO_2$ film photo anode incorporated with different amount of grapheme nanosheet(GNS) are fabricated and their photovoltaic performance are investigated. The $TiO_2$-GNS composite electrode has been prepared by a direct mixing method. The DSSC performance of this composite electrode was measured using N3 dye as a sensitizer. The performance of DSSCs using the $TiO_2$-GNS composite electrodes is dependent on the GNS loading in the electrodes. The results show that the DSSCs incorporating 0.01 wt% GNS in $TiO_2$photo anode demonstrates a maximum power conversion efficiency of 5.73%, 26% higher than that without GNS. The performance improvement is ascribed to increased N3 dye adsorption, the reduction of electron recombination and back transport reaction as well as enhancement of electron transport with the introduction of GNS. The presence of both $TiO_2$(anatase) and GNS has been confirmed by FieldEmission Scanning Electron Microscopy(FE-SEM). The decrease in recombination due to GNS in DSSCs has been investigated by the Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy.