• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2019

Well aligned $SnO_2$-doped ZnO nanorods were prepared by single step or 2-step electrochemical depositions in a mixture solution of zinc nitrate hexahydrate, ammonium hydroxide solution and 0.1 M tin chloride pentahydrate. The morphologies of electrochemically deposited $SnO_2$-doped ZnO were transformed from plain (or network) structures at low reduction potential to needles on hills at high reduction potential. Well aligned ZnO was prepared at intermediate potential ranges. Reduction reagent and a high concentration of Zn precursor were required to fabricate $SnO_2$ doped ZnO nanorods. When compared to results obtained by single step electrochemical deposition, 2-step electrochemical deposition produced a much higher density of nanorods, which was ascribed to less potential being required for nucleation of nanorods by the second-step electrochemical deposition because the surface was activated in the first-step. Mechanisms of $SnO_2$ doped ZnO nanorods prepared at single step or 2-step was described in terms of applied potential ranges and mass-/charge- limited transfer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.615-619
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• 2018

To produce carbon electrodes for use in perovskite solar cells, electrode samples are prepared by mixing various weight ratios of 35 nm nano carbon(NC) and $1{\mu}m$ graphite flakes(GF), GF/(NC+GF) = 0, 0.5, 0.7, and 1, in chlorobenzene(CB) solvent with a $ZrO_2$ binder. The carbon electrodes are fabricated as glass/FTO/carbon electrode devices for microstructure characterization using transmission electron microscopy, optical microscopy, and a field emission scanning electron microscopy. The electrical characterization is performed with a four-point probe and a multi tester. The microstructure characterization shows that an electrode with excellent attachment to the substrate and no surface cracks at weight ratios above 0.5. The electrical characterization results show that the sheet resistance is <$70{\Omega}/sq$ and the interface resistance is <$70{\Omega}$ at weight ratios of 0.5 and 0.7. Therefore, a carbon paste electrode with microstructure and electrical properties similar to those of commercial carbon electrodes is proposed with an appropriate mixing ratio of NC and GF containing a CB solvent and $ZrO_2$.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.63-69
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• 2022

Preparing various types of thin films of oxide semiconductors is a promising approach to fabricate efficient photoanodes and photocathodes for hydrogen production via photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of an efficient photocathode for PEC water reduction of a p-type oxide semiconductor cupric oxide (CuO) thin film prepared via a facile method combined with sputtering Cu metallic film on fluorine-doped thin oxide (FTO) coated glass substrate and subsequent thermal oxidation of the sputtered Cu metallic film in dry air. Characterization of the structural, optical, and PEC properties of the CuO thin film prepared at various Cu sputtering powers reveals that we can obtain an optimum CuO thin film as an efficient PEC photocathode at a Cu sputtering power of 60 W. The photocurrent density and the optimal photocurrent conversion efficiency for the optimum CuO thin film photocathode are found to be -0.3 mA/cm² and 0.09% at 0.35 V vs. RHE, respectively. These results provide a promising route to fabricating earth-abundant copper-oxide-based photoelectrode for sunlight-driven hydrogen generation using a facile method.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.377-389
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• 2022

The current global energy supply depends heavily on fossil fuels. This makes technology such as direct water splitting from harvesting solar energy in photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems potentially attractive due to its a promising route for environmentally benign hydrogen production. In this study, undoped and nickel-doped molybdenum oxide photoanodes (called photoanodes S₁ and S₂ respectively) were synthesized through electrodeposition by applying -1.377 V vs Ag/AgCl (3 M KCl) for 3 hours on an FTO-coated glass substrate immersed in molibdatecitrate aqueous solutions at pH 9. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used for microstructural and compositional characterizations of the photoanodes. In addition, the optical and photoelectrochemical characterizations of these photoanodes were performed by UV-Visible spectroscopy, and linear scanning voltammetry (LSV) respectively. The results showed that all the photoanodes produced exhibit conductivity and catalytic properties that make them attractive for water splitting application in a photoelectrochemical cell. In this context, the photoanode S₂ exhibited better photocatalytic activity than the photoanode S₁. In addition, photoanode S₂ had the lowest optical band-gap energy value (2.58 eV), which would allow better utilization of the solar spectrum.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.175-180
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• 2011

In this study, the $TiO_{2}/V_{2}O_{5}$ hybrid semiconductors were prepared by mixing $TiO_{2}$ and $V_{2}O_{5}$, and a subsequent smash process to reduce the recombination of electron and improve the efficiency of solar cells. Dye-sensitized solar cells were constructed using the resultant hybrid semiconductor, and their electrochemical properties were also investigated. The photocurrent-voltage curve obtained with the cells indicated a significant increase in the efficiency from 2.9 to 5.7% by the factor of 2 compared to the result obtained only with $TiO_{2}$. It is believed that the introduction of $V_{2}O_{5}$ effectively transport electrons in the $TiO_{2}$ conduction band to FTO glass and suppress recombination with the dye and/or the electrolyte, thus yielding an efficient performance of the dye sensitized solar cell. The impedance values also indicated a decrease of resistance in the interface of $TiO_{2}$/dye/electrolyte supporting the constructive contributions of the smashed $TiO_{2}/V_{2}O_{5}$ hybrid semiconductors for the efficiency.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.96.1-96.1
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• 2010

현재 태양광 시장에 진출한 대부분의 Si계열 태양전지는 복잡한 공정과 원재료 고갈, 높은 가격으로 인해 한계에 직면에 있는 상태이다. 최근 많은 연구소나 학교에서는 기존의 Si계열 태양전지를 대체할 대안으로 염료 감응형 태양전지에 대해서 높은 관심을 보이고 있으며, 그동안의 연구개발로 단위 셀 면적에서는 상용화에 근접한 효율을 확보한 상태이다. 염료 감응형 태양전지의 작동과정을 간단히 단계별로 살펴보면 나노 결정 산화물 반도체 표면에 흡착된 염료분자가 가시광선을 흡수하면 전자는 HOMO에서 LUMO로 천이하고 이 들뜬 상태의 전자는 다시 에너지 준위가 낮은 반도체 산화물의 전도띠로 주입된다. 주입된 전자는 나노 입자간 계면을 통하여 투명 전도성막으로 확산, 전달되고 산화된 염료분자는 전해질 I-에 의해 다시 환원되어 중성 분자가 된다. 그러나 표면상태 전자 중 일부는 산화된 염료와 다시 결합하거나, 전해질의 $I^{3-}$ 이온을 환원시키기도 한다. 이와 같은 과정은 암전류를 증가시키면서 반도체 전극 막의 성능을 저해하는 주원인이 된다. 전자의 재결합은 투명 전극을 통해서도 가능하기 때문에 투명 전극에 얇은 blocking layer를 도포한 후 나노 결정 산화물 반도체 전극을 제작하면 전지 특성을 향상시킬 수 있다. 본 실험에서 우리는 졸-젤 법으로 $TiO_2$ blocking layer 졸을 만들었고 간단하며 저가공정이 가능한 스크린 프린팅 방법으로 blocking layer를 형성하는 실험을 진행하였다. 전도띠 에너지가 높은 반도체 물질로 표면을 처리하면 $TiO_2$-전해질 간 계면에 에너지 장벽이 형성되어 재결합을 줄여 모든 광전특성이 향상 되었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.407.1-407.1
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• 2016

Electrochromism is defined as a phenomenon which involves persistently repeated change of optical properties between bleached state and colored state by simultaneous injection of electrons and ions, sufficient to induce an electrochemical redox process. Due to this feature, considerable progress has been made in the synthesis of electrochromic (EC) materials, improvements of EC properties in EC devices such as light shutter, smart window and variable reflectance mirrors etc. Among the variable EC materials, solid-state inorganics in particular, metal oxide semiconducting materials such as nickel oxide (NiO) have been investigated extensively. The NiO that is an anodic EC material is of special interest because of high color contrast ratio, large dynamic range and low material cost. The high performance EC devices should present the use of standard industrial production techniques to produce films with high coloration efficiency, rapid switching speed and robust reversibility. Generally, the color contrast and the optical switching speed increase drastically if high surface area is used. The structure of porous thin film provides a specific surface area and can facilitate a very short response time of the reaction between the surface and ions. The large variety of methods has been used to prepare the porous NiO thin films such as sol-gel process, chemical bath deposition and sputtering. Few studies have been reported on NiO thin films made by using sol-gel method. However, compared with dry process, wet processes that have the questions of the durability and the vestige of bleached state color limit the thin films practical use, especially when prepared by sol-gel method. In this study, we synthesis the porous NiO thin films on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by using sputtering and anodizing method. Also we compared electrical and optical properties of NiO thin films prepared by sol gel. The porous structure is promised to be helpful to the properties enhancement of the EC devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.235.2-235.2
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• 2015

The front transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films must exhibit good transparency, low resistivity and excellent light scattering properties for high efficiency amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film solar cells. The light trapping phenomenon is limited due to non-uniform and low aspect ratio of the textured glass [1]. We present the low cost electrochemically deposited uniform zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods with various aspect ratios for a-Si thin film solar cells. Since the major drawback of the electrochemically deposited ZnO nanorods was the high sheet resistance and low transmittance that was overcome by depositing the RF magnetron sputtered AZO films as a seed layer with various thicknesses [2]. The length and diameters of the ZnO nanorods was controlled by varying the deposition conditions. The length of ZnO nanorods were varied from 400 nm to $2{\mu}m$ while diameter was kept higher than 200 nm to obtain different aspect ratios. The uniform ZnO nanorods showed higher haze ratio as compared to the commercially available FTO films. We also observed that the scattering in the longer wavelength region was favored for the high aspect ratio of ZnO nanorods and much higher aspect ratios degraded the light scattering phenomenon. Therefore, we proposed our low cost and uniform ZnO nanorods for the high efficiency of thin film solar cells.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2017

In this work, two different platinum (Pt) counter electrodes have been prepared by spin coating a Pt solution and screen printing a Pt paste on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrate followed by sintering at $380^{\circ}C$ for 30 min. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analyses of the Pt electrodes showed that the spin coated electrode was catalytically more active than the screen printed electrode. The above result agrees well with the surface morphology of the electrodes studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the photovoltaic performance of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) fabricated with the Pt electrodes. Moreover, calculation of current density-voltage (j-V) curves according to diode model with the parameters obtained from the experimental j-V curves and the EIS data of the DSSCs provided a quantitative insight about how the catalytic activity of the counter electrodes affected the photovoltaic performance of the cells. Even though the experimental situations involved in this work are trivial, the method of analyses outlined here gives a strong insight about how the catalytic activity of a counter electrode affects the photovoltaic performance of a DSSC. This work, also, demonstrates how the photovoltaic performance of DSSCs can be improved by tuning the performance of counter electrode materials.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.235-240
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• 2018

We propose a speedy two-step deposit process to form an Au electrode on hole transport layer(HTL) without any damage using a general thermal evaporator in a perovskite solar cell(PSC). An Au electrode with a thickness of 70 nm was prepared with one-step and two-step processes using a general thermal evaporator with a 30 cm source-substrate distance and $6.0{\times}10^{-6}$ torr vacuum. The one-step process deposits the Au film with the desirable thickness through a source power of 60 and 100 W at a time. The two-step process deposits a 7 nm-thick buffer layer with source power of 60, 70, and 80 W, and then deposits the remaining film thickness at higher source power of 80, 90, and 100 W. The photovoltaic properties and microstructure of these PSC devices with a glass/FTO/$TiO_2$/perovskite/HTL/Au electrode were measured by a solar simulator and field emission scanning electron microscope. The one-step process showed a low depo-temperature of $88.5^{\circ}C$ with a long deposition time of 90 minutes at 60 W. It showed a high depo-temperature of $135.4^{\circ}C$ with a short deposition time of 8 minutes at 100 W. All the samples showed an ECE lower than 2.8 % due to damage on the HTL. The two-step process offered an ECE higher than 6.25 % without HTL damage through a deposition temperature lower than $88^{\circ}C$ and a short deposition time within 20 minutes in general. Therefore, the proposed two-step process is favorable to produce an Au electrode layer for the PSC device with a general thermal evaporator.