• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.31-35
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• 2016

This paper demonstrates the successful application of yttria-stabilized zirconia thin films deposited by atomic layer deposition to the anode-side interlayer for cerium oxide electrolyte based solid oxide fuel cell. At the operating temperature over $500^{\circ}C$, the electrical conductivity of cerium oxide electrolyte is known to dramatically increase and, therefore, the open circuit voltage of the cell decreases leading to the decrease of the performance. Ultra-thin (60 nm) atomic layer deposited yttria-stabilized zirconia thin film in this study conformally coated the anode-side surface of the cerium oxide electrolyte and efficiently blocked the electrical conduction through the electrolyte. Accordingly, the open circuit voltage increased by up to 20%, and the maximum power density increased by 52% at $500^{\circ}C$

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.54-54
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• 2010

Zinc oxide is metal oxide semiconductor with the 3.37 eV bandgap energy. Zinc oxide is very attractive materials for many application fields. Zinc Oxide has many advantages such as high conductivity and good transmittance in visible region. Also it is cheaper than other semiconductor materials such as indium tin oxide (ITO). Therefore, ZnO is alternative material for ITO. ZnO is attracting attention for its application to transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films, surface acoustic wave (SAW), films bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR), piezoelectric materials, gas-sensing, solar cells and photocatalyst. In this study, we synthesized ZnO nanoparticles and defined their physical and chemical properties. Also we studied about the application of ZnO nanoparticles as a photocatalyst and try to find a enhancement photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorticles.. We synthesized ZnO nanoparticles using spray-pyrolysis method and defined the physical and optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles in experiment I. When the ZnO are exposed to UV light, reduction and oxidation(REDOX) reaction will occur on the ZnO surface and generate ${O_2}^-$ and OH radicals. These powerful oxidizing agents are proven to be effective in decomposition of the harmful organic materials and convert them into $CO_2$ and $H_2O$. Therefore, we investigated that the photocatalytic activity was increased through the surface modification of synthesized ZnO nanoparticles. In experiment II, we studied on the stability of ZnO nanoparticles in water. It is well known that ZnO is unstable in water in comparison with $TiO_2$. $Zn(OH)_2$ was formed at the ZnO surface and ZnO become inactive as a photocatalyst when ZnO is present in the solution. Therefore, we prepared synthesized ZnO nanoparticles that were immersed in the water and dried in the oven. After that, we measured photocatalytic activities of prepared samples and find the cause of their photocatalytic activity changes.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.357-363
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• 2017

In this study, Bi-Sb-Te thermoelectric materials are produced by mechanical alloying (MA) and spark plasma sintering (SPS). To examine the influence of the milling atmosphere on the microstructure and thermo-electric (TE) properties, a p-type Bi-Sb-Te composite powder is mechanically alloyed in the presence of argon and air atmospheres. The oxygen content increases to 55% when the powder is milled in the air atmosphere, compared with argon. All grains are similar in size and uniformly, distributed in both atmospheric sintered samples. The Seebeck coefficient is higher, while the electrical conductivity is lower in the MA (Air) sample due to a low carrier concentration compared to the MA (Ar) sintered sample. The maximum figure of merit (ZT) is 0.91 and 0.82 at 350 K for the MA (Ar) and MA (Air) sintered samples, respectively. The slight enhancement in the ZT value is due to the decrease in the oxygen content during the MA (Ar) process. Moreover, the combination of mechanical alloying and SPS process shows a higher hardness and density values for the sintered samples.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.283-289
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• 2010

A two-dimensional isothermal model has been employed for numerical simulations of a high temperature hydrogen fuel cell with proton exchange membrane. The model is validated with existing experimental data and used for examination on the effects of various operating conditions on the fuel cell performance. The present numerical results show that the cell performance increases with increasing exchange current density, ion conductivity of the membrane, inlet gas flow rate as well as operating pressure. Also, higher porosity of gas diffusion layer (GDL) results in higher cell performance due to enhancement of the diffusion through the GDL, where the cathode GDL porosity more influences on the performance as compared with the anode one.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.2067-2072
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• 2013

Hydrogen ($H_2$) treatment using a two-step $TiO_2$ nanotube (TONT) film was performed under various annealing temperatures from $350^{\circ}C$ to $550^{\circ}C$ and significantly influenced the extent of hydrogen treatment in the film. Compared with pure TONT films, the hydrogen-treated TONT (H:TONT) film showed substantial improvement of material features from structural, optical and electronic aspects. In particular, the extent of enhancement was remarkable with increasing annealing temperature. Light absorption by the H:TONT film extended toward the visible region, which was attributable to the formation of sub-band-gap states between the conduction and valence bands, resulting from oxygen vacancies due to the $H_2$ treatment. This increased donor concentration about 1.5 times higher and improved electrical conductivity of the TONT films. Based on these analyses and results, photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance was evaluated and showed that the H:TONT film prepared at $550^{\circ}C$ exhibited optimal PEC performance. Approximately twice higher photocurrent density of 0.967 $mA/cm^2$ at 0.32 V vs. NHE was achieved for the H:TONT film ($550^{\circ}C$) versus 0.43 $mA/cm^2$ for the pure TONT film. Moreover, the solar-to-hydrogen efficiency (STH, ${\eta}$) of the H:TONT film was 0.95%, whereas a 0.52% STH efficiency was acquired for the TONT film. These results demonstrate that hydrogen treatment of TONT film is a simple and effective tool to enhance PEC performance with modifying the properties of the original material.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.415-421
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• 2023

In this study, the piezoresistive properties of cementitious composites enhanced with carbon nanotubes for improved electrical conductivity were analyzed using a deep learning-based transformer algorithm. Experimental execution was performed in parallel for acquisition of training data. Previous studies on mixture design, specimen fabrication, chemical composition analysis, and piezoresistive performance testing are also reviewed in this paper. Notably, specimens in which fly ash substituted 50% of the binder material were fabricated and evaluated in this study, in addition to carbon nanotube-infused specimens, thereby exploring the potential enhancement of piezoresistive characteristics in conductive cementitious materials. The experimental results showed more stable piezoresistive responses in specimens with fly-ash substituted binder. The transformer model was trained using 80% of the gathered data, with the remaining 20% employed for validation. The analytical outcomes were generally consistent with empirical measurements, yielding an average absolute error and root mean square error between 0.069 to 0.074 and 0.124 to 0.132, respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.253-257
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• 2017

Graphene is a monolayer carbon material which consists of $sp^2$ bonding between carbon atoms. Its excellent intrinsic properties allow graphene to be used in various research fields. Many researchers believe that graphene is suitable for electronic device materials due to its high electrical conductivity and carrier mobility. Through chemical doping, n- or p-type graphene can be obtained, and consequently graphene-based devices which have more comparable structure to common semiconductor-based devices can be fabricated. In our research, we introduced the dielectrophoresis process to the chemical doping step in order to improve the effect of chemical doping of graphene selectively. Under 10 kHz and $5V_{pp}$ (peak-to-peak voltage), doping was conducted and the Au nanoparticles were effectively formed, as well as aligned along the edges of graphene. Effects of the selective chemical doping on graphene were investigated through Raman spectroscopy and the change of its electrical properties were explored. We proposed the method to enhance the doping effect in local region of a graphene layer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.472-477
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• 2010

$Al_2O_3$ has received wide attention with established use as a catalyst and growing application in structural or functional ceramic materials. On the other hand, the boehmite (AlO(OH)) obtained by sol-gel process has exhibited a decrease in surface area during phase transformation due to a decline in surface active site at high temperature. In this work, $Al_2O_3$-CuO/ZnO (ACZ) and $Al_2O_3$-CuO/CeO (ACC) composite materials were synthesized with aluminum isopropoxide, copper (II) nitrate hemi (pentahydrate), and cerium (III) nitrate hexahydrate or zinc (II) nitrate hexahydrate. Moreover, the Span 80 as the template block copolymer was added to the ACZ/ACC composition to make nano size particles and to keep increasing the surface area. The ACZ/ACC synthesized powders were characterized by Thermogravimetry-Differential Thermal analysis (TG/DTA), X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Field-Emmision Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM), Bruner-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface analysis and thermal electrical conductivity (ZEM-2:M8/L). An enhancement of surface area with the addition to Span 80 surfactant was observed in the ACZ powders from 105 $m^2$/g to 142 $m^2$/g, and the ACC powders from 103 $m^2$/g to 140 $m^2$/g, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.380-380
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• 2010

Currently, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have been proven of their readiness for commercialization in terms of lifetime and efficiency. In accordance with emerging new technologies, enhancement of light efficiency and extension of application fields are required. Particularly inverted structures, in which electron injection occurs at bottom and hole injection on top, show crucial advantages due to their easy integration with Si-based driving circuits for active matrix OLED as well as large open area for brighter illumination. In order to get better performance and process reliability, usually a proper buffer layer for carrier injection is needed. In inverted top emission OLED, the buffer layer should protect underlying organic materials against destructive particles during the electrode deposition, in addition to increasing their efficiency by reducing carrier injection barrier. For hole injection layers, there are several requirements for the buffer layer, such as high transparency, high work function, and reasonable electrical conductivity. As a buffer material, a few kinds of transition metal oxides for inverted OLED applications have been successfully utilized aiming at efficient hole injection properties. Among them, we chose 2 nm of $WO_3$ between NPB [N,N'-bis(1-naphthyl)-N,N'-diphenyl-1,1'-biphenyl-4,4'-diamine] and Au (or Al) films. The interfacial energy-level alignment and chemical reaction as a function of film coverage have been measured by using in-situ ultraviolet and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It turned out that the $WO_3$ interlayer substantially reduces the hole injection barrier irrespective of the kind of electrode metals. It also avoids direct chemical interaction between NPB and metal atoms. This observation clearly validates the use of $WO_3$ interlayer as hole injection for inverted OLED applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.423-423
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• 2011

Zinc oxide is metal oxide semiconductor with the 3.37 eV bandgap energy. Zinc oxide is very attractive materials for many application fields. Zinc Oxide has many advantages such as high conductivity and good transmittance in visible region. Also it is cheaper than other semiconductor materials such as indium tin oxide (ITO). Therefore, ZnO is alternative material for ITO. ZnO is attracting attention for its application to transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films, surface acoustic wave (SAW), films bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR), piezoelectric materials, gas-sensing, solar cells and photocatalyst. In this study, we synthesized ZnO nanoparticles and defined their physical and chemical properties. Also we studied about the application of ZnO nanoparticles as a photocatalyst and try to find a enhancement photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorticles.. We synthesized ZnO nanoparticles using spray-pyrolysis method and defined the physical and optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles in experiment I. When the ZnO are exposed to UV light, reduction and oxidation (REDOX) reaction will occur on the ZnO surface and generate O2- and OH radicals. These powerful oxidizing agents are proven to be effective in decomposition of the harmful organic materials and convert them into CO2 and H2O. Therefore, we investigated that the photocatalytic activity was increased through the surface modification of synthesized ZnO nanoparticles. In experiment II, we studied on the stability of ZnO nanoparticles in water. It is well known that ZnO is unstable in water in comparison with TiO2. Zn(OH)2 was formed at the ZnO surface and ZnO become inactive as a photocatalyst when ZnO is present in the solution. Therefore, we prepared synthesized ZnO nanoparticles that were immersed in the water and dried in the oven. After that, we measured photocatalytic activities of prepared samples and find the cause of their photocatalytic activity changes.