• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.773-778
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• 2012

A road energy harvester was designed and fabricated to convert mechanical energy from the vehicle load to electrical energy. The road energy harvester is composed of 16 piezoelectric cantilevers. We fabricated prototypes using a vehicle load transfer mechanism. Applying a vehicle load transfer mechanism rather than directly installing energy harvesters under roads decreases the area of road construction and allows more energy harvesters to be installed on the side of the road. The power generation amount with respect to the vehicular velocity change was assessed by installing the vehicle load transfer mechanism form and underground form. The energy harvester installed in the underground form generated power of 4.52 mJ at the vehicular velocity of 50 km/h. Also, power generation of the energy harvester installed in the vehicle load transfer mechanism form was 48.65 mJ at the vehicular velocity of 50 km/h.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.19-31
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• 2005

During the last decade, the exploration of nanoscale device and circuitry based on molecules has gained increasing interest. In parallel with this, considerable effort is being devoted to the development of molecular photonic/electronic materials based on various porphyrin arrays. This involves light as an input/output signal and excitation energy migration as a mechanism for signal transmission. Absorption of a photon at the light collector end of the porphyrin array yields the excited state, which migrates among the intervening pigments until reaching the emitter, whereupon another photon is emitted. As a consequence, it is relevant to understand the excitation energy transfer (EET) processes occurring in various forms of porphyrin arrays for the applications as artificial light harvesting arrays and molecular photonic/electronic wires. Since the excitonic (dipole) and electronic (conjugation) couplings between the adjacent porphyrin moieties in porphyrin arrays govern the EET processes, we have characterized the EET rates of various forms of multiporphyrin arrays (linear, cyclic, and box) based on various time-resolved spectroscopic measurements. We believe that our observations provide a platform for further development of molecular photonic/electronic materials based on porphyrin arrays.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.406-413
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• 2015

The piezoelectric coupling in piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters with load resistance induces electrical damping as well as increase in the system stiffness. Starting from analytically deriving the explicit relations through governing equations in the frequency domain, this work identifies the characteristics of the electrically induced damping mechanism and shows that the electrically induced damping serves as a structural hysteretic damping on condition that a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester is excited at its short-circuit resonant frequency and its load resistor is optimally impedance- matched at the same time. Finally, it is analytically verified that the equivalence of a mechanical and an electrically induced damping ratio is required for the maximum power generation at a load resistor, which was claimed in some literature.

• Journal of Photoscience
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.175-183
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• 2005

Plants dissipate excess excitation energy from their photosynthetic apparatus by a process called non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). The major part of NPQ is energy dependent quenching (qE) which is dependent on the thylakoid pH and regulated by xanthophyll cycle carotenoids associated with photosystem (PS) II of higher plants. The acidification of the lumen leads to protonation and thus conformational change of light harvesting complex (LHC) proteins as well as PsbS protein of PSII, which results in the induction of qE. Although physiological importance of qE has been well established, the mechanistic understanding is rather insufficient. However, recent finding of crystal structure of LHCII trimer and identification of qE mutants in higher plants and algae enrich and sharpen our understanding of this process. This review summarizes our current knowledge on the qE mechanism. The nature of quenching sites and components involved in this process, and their contribution and interaction for the generation of qE appeared in the proposed models for the qE mechanism are discussed.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.88.2-88.2
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• 2010

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted considerable attention on account of their high solar energy-to-conversion efficiencies and low cost processes compared to conventional p-n junction solar cells. The mechanism of DSSC is based on the injection of electrons from the photo excited dyes into the conduction band of the semiconductor electrode. The oxidized dye is reduced by the hole injection into either the hole conductor or the electrolyte. Thus, the light harvesting effect of dye plays an important role in capturing the photons and generating the electron/hole pair, as well as transferring them to the interface of the semiconductor and the electrolyte, respectively. We used the organic fluorescence materials which can absorb short wavelength light and emit longer wavelength region where dye sensitize effectively. In this work, the DSSCs were fabricated with fluorescence materials added $TiO_2$ photo-electrode which were sensitized with metal-free organic dyes. The photovoltaic performances of fluorescence aided DSSCs were compared, and the recombination dark current curves and the incident photon-to-current (IPCE) efficiencies were measured in order to characterize the effects of the additional light harvesting effect in DSSC. Electro-optical measurements were also used to optimize the fluorescence material contents on TiO2 photo-electrode surface for higher conversion efficiency (${\eta}$), fill factor (FF), open-circuit voltage (VOC) and short-circuit current (ISC). The enhanced light harvesting effect by the judicious choice/design of the fluorescence materials and sensitizing dyes permits the enhancement of photovoltaic performance of DSSC.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.397-397
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• 2016

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) can produce power from ambient mechanical sources and have strong points of high output performance, light weight, low cost, and easy manufacturing process. It is expected that TENG can be utilized in the fields of wireless electronics and self-powered devices in the world which pays attention to healthcare and the IoT. In this work, we focus on scavenging ambient rotational energy by using a durably designed TENG. In previous studies regarding harvesting rotation mode energy, the devices were based on sliding mechanism and durability was not considered as a major issue. However friction by rotation causes reliability problems due to wear and tear. Therefore, in this study, we convert rotary motion to linear motion utilizing a cam by which we can then utilize contact-mode TENG and improve device reliability. In order to increase output performance, bumper springs were used below the TENG and the optimum value for the bumper spring constant was analyzed theoretically. Furthermore, the inserting a soft substrate was proposed and its effect on high output was determined to be due to an increase in the contact area. By increasing the number of cam noses, the output frequency was shown to increase linearly. For the purpose of maximum power transfer, the input impedance of the device was determined. Finally, to demonstrate the use of the C-TENG as a direct power source, it was installed on a commercial bicycle wheel and connected to 180 LEDs. In conclusion we present a rotational motion TENG energy scavenger system designed for enhanced durability and optimized output by appropriate choice of spring constants and substrate.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.858-864
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• 2014

Recently, many researches have shown that even photosynthetic light-harvesting pigment-protein complexes can have quantum coherence in their excitonic energy transfer at cryogenic and physiological temperatures. Because the protein supplies such noisy environment around pigments that conventional wisdom expects very short lived quantum coherence, elucidating the mechanism and searching for an applicability of the coherence have become an interesting topic in both experiment and theory. We have previously studied the quantum coherence of a phycocyanin 645 complex in a marine algae harvesting light system, using Poisson mapping bracket equation (PBME). PBME is one of the applicable methods for solving quantum-classical Liouville equation, for following the dynamics of such pigment-protein complexes. However, it may suffer from many defects mostly from mapping quantum degrees of freedom into classical ones. To make improvements against such defects, benchmarking targets with more accurately described dynamics is highly needed. Here, we fall back to reduced hierarchical equation of motion (HEOM), for such a purpose. Even though HEOM is known to applicable only to simplified system that is coupled to a set of harmonic oscillators, it can provide ultimate accuracy within the regime of quantum-classical description, thus providing perfect benchmark targets for certain systems. We compare the evolution of the density matrix of pigment excited states by HEOM against the PBME results at physiological temperature, and observe more sophisticated changes of density matrix elements from HEOM. In PBME, the population of states with intermediate energies display only monotonically increasing behaviors. Most importantly, PBME suffers a serious issue of wrong population in the long time limit, likely generated by the zero-point energy leaking problem. Future prospects for developments are briefly discussed as a concluding remark.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.511-515
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• 2012

A road energy harvester was designed and fabricated to convert mechanical energy from the vehicle load to electrical energy. The road energy harvester is composed of 24 piezoelectric cantilevers and a vehicle load transfer mechanism. Applying a vehicle load transfer mechanism rather than directly installing energy harvesters under roads decreases the area of road construction and allows more energy harvesters to be installed on the side of the road. The power generation amount with respect to the vehicular velocity change was assessed by installing the vehicle load transfer mechanism and the energy harvester in the form of speed bumps and underground. The energy harvester installed in a speed bump form generated power of 7.61 mW at the vehicular velocity of 20 km/h. Also, power generation of the energy harvester installed in the underground form was 63.9 mW at the vehicular velocity of 28 km/h. Although the number of piezoelectric cantilevers was reduced by 1/3 to 24 in comparison to the previous research results with 72 piezoelectric cantilevers, similar power generation characteristic value was obtained within the vehicular velocity of 20 km/h by altering the vehicle load transfer mechanism and cantilever vibration method.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.623-628
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• 2010

This paper presents a wind-power-driven portable power source based on piezoelectric effect. Positive piezoelectric effect is one of efficient and widely used mechanisms for converting mechanical energy to electrical energy. However, for this mechanism, a periodic mechanical stress with a high frequency, as in the case of AC, has to be exerted; such stress cannot be exerted by the natural wind in the environment. The natural wind has a constant velocity with slow and irregular variations, as in the case of DC. In this paper, we propose a novel and simple mechanism to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The DC-like wind flow is passed through a propeller to convert it to an AC-like wind flow; the resultant AC-like periodic flow induces vibrations in a piezoelectric cantilever, thereby, generating electrical power. This system is expected to be one of practical solutions for wireless energy supply to ubiquitous sensor networks (USNs).

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.437-441
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• 2014

This paper presents a novel microplatform for high power generation based on reverse electrodialysis. The ideal cation-selective membrane for power generation was realized using geometrically controlled in situ self-assembled nanoparticles. Our proposed membranes can be constructed through a simple and cost-effective process that uses microdroplet control with nanoparticles in a microchannel. Another advantage of our system is that the maximum power and energy conversion efficiency can be improved by changing the geometry of the microchannel and proper selection of the nanoparticle size and material. This proposed platform can be used to supply power sources to other microdevices and contribute to a fundamental understanding of ion transport behavior and the power generation mechanism.