• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.141-145
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• 2017

Background: The concrete walls inside the vaults of cyclotron facilities are activated by neutrons emitted by the targets during radioisotope production. Reducing the amount of radioactive waste created in such facilities is very important in case they are decommissioned. Thus, we proposed a strategy of reducing the neutron activation of the concrete walls in cyclotrons during operation. Materials and Methods: A polyethylene plate and B-doped Al sheet (30 wt% of B and 2.5 mm in thickness) were placed in front of the wall in the cyclotron room of a radioisotope production facility for pharmaceutical use. The target was Xe gas, and a Cu block was utilized for proton dumping. The irradiation time, proton energy, and beam current were 8 hours, 30 MeV, and $125{\mu}A$, respectively. To determine a suitable thickness for the polyethylene plate set in front of the B-doped Al sheet, the neutron-reducing effects achieved by inserting such sheets at several depths within polyethylene plate stacks were evaluated. The neutron fluence was monitored using an activation detector and 20-g on de Au foil samples with and without 0.5-mm-thick Cd foil. Each Au foil sample was pasted onto the center of a polyethylene plate and B-doped Al sheet, and the absolute activity of one Au foil sample was measured as a standard using a Ge detector. The resulting relative activities were obtained by calculating the ratio of the photostimulated luminescence of each foil sample to that of the standard Au foil. Results and Discussion: When the combination of a 4-cm-thick polyethylene plate and B-doped Al sheet was employed, the thermal neutron rate was reduced by 78%. Conclusion: The combination of a 4-cm-thick polyethylene plate and B-doped Al sheet effectively reduced the neutron activation of the investigated concrete wall.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.539-539
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• 2008

본 논문에서는 투명전도박막의 균일한 표면특성을 확보하기 위해 광역평탄화 공정을 적용하여 투명전도 박막의 표면 거칠기를 연구하였으며 슬러리의 종류에 따른 박막의 연마특성을 연구하였다. 본 실험에서 사용된 ITO 박막은 RF Sputtering에 의해 제작되었고 하부 기판은 석영 Glass가 사용되었다. 광역평탄화를 위한 CMP 공정은 고분자 물질계열의 패드위에 슬러리입자를 공급하고 웨이퍼 캐리어에 하중을 가하며 웨이퍼의 표면을 연마하는 방법으로 가공물을 탄성패드에 누르면서 상대 운동시켜 가공물과 친화력이 우수한 부식액으로 화학적 제거를 함과 동시에 초미립자로 기계적 제거를 하는 것이다. ITO 박막의 평탄화를 위한 공정조건은 Polisher pressure 300 g/$cm^2$, 슬러리 유속 80 ml/min, 플레이튼속도 60 rpm으로 하였다. 위의 조건에 따라 공정을 진행 후 연마특성을 측정하였으며 이때 사용된 슬러리는 산화막에 사용되는 실리카슬러리와 금속연마용 슬러리인 EPL을 사용하였다. 연마율은 실리카 슬러리가 EPL슬러리에 비해 높음을 확인 하였다. CMP 공정에 의해 평탄화를 수행 할 경우 실리카슬러리와 EPL슬러리 모두 CMP전에 비해 돌출된 힐록들이 감소되었음을 알 수 있었다. 비균일도 특성은 모든 슬러리가 양호한 특성을 나타내었다. 평탄화된 박막의 표면과 거칠기 특성은 AFM(XE-200, PSIA Company) 을 이용하여 분석을 하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.54-54
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• 2008

$Eu^{2+}$, $Nd^{3+}$ co-doped $BaAl_2O_4$ are known as a long afterglow phosphor. We found that $Eu^{2+}$-doped $BaAl_2O_4$ showed ptotoconductivity in the range of UV and visual light. In this study, $BaAl_2O_4$:Eu thin film has been prepared by RF sputtering method and a sensing characteristics to UV and visual light was performed. Only $Eu^{2+}$ and $Nd^{3+}$ co-doped $BaAl_2O_4$ powders and targets for deposition were prepared by a convention solid state method, and the deposition was performed in a reducing $H_2$-Ar mixture gas on Si substrates. The observation of crystalline phase and morphology of the sputtered film were performed using XRD, EDX. The photoluminescence and photocurrent to UV and visual light were measured simultaneously using 300W-Xe solar simulator as a light source. It was confirmed that the photocurrent induced by irradiation of light showed a linear relationship to the light intensity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.207-207
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• 2008

ZnO is one of the widely utilized n-type semiconducting oxide materials in the field of optoelectronic devices. For its application to the fabrication of promising ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors, ZnO with various structures has been extensively studied. However, study on the photodetectors using zero-dimensional (0-D) ZnO nanoparticle is scarce while the 0-D nanoparticle structure has many advantages compared to the other dimensional structures for absorption of light. In this study, the photocurrent characteristics of ZnO nanoparticles were investigated through a simply pasting of the nanoparticles across the pre-patterned electrodes. Then the photoluminescence (PL) characteristic, photocurrent response spectrum, photo- and dark-current and photoresponse spectrum were investigated with a He-Cd laser and an Xe lamp. An dominant PL peak of the ZnO nanoparticles was located at the wavelength of 380 nm under the illumination of 325-nm wavelength light. The ratio of photocurrent to dark current (on/off ratio) is as high as 106 which is considerable value for promising photodetectors. On the other hand, the time constants in photoresponse were relatively slow. The reasons of the high on/off ratio and relatively slow photoresponse characteristic will be discussed.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.07c
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• pp.2116-2118
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• 2000

In the technique of Q-switching, very fast electronically controlled optical shutters can be made by using the electro-optic effect in crystals or liquids. The driver for the Pockels cell must be a high-speed, high-voltage switch which also must deliver a sizeable current. Common switching techniques include the use of vacuum tubes, cold cathode tubes, thyratrons, SCRs, and avalanche transistors. Semiconductor devices such as SCRs, avalanche transistors, and MOSFETs have been successfully employed to drive Pockels cell Q-switch. In this study, a simple driver for the Pockels cell Q-switch was developed by using SCRs, pulse transformer and TTL ICs. The Pockels cell Q-switch which was operated by this driver was employed in pulsed Nd:YAG laser system to investigate the operating characteristics of this Q-switch. And we have investigated the output characteristics of this Q-switch as a function of the Q-switch delay time to Xe flashlamp current on.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 2006

We have successfully developed the KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) Solar Imaging Spectrograph (KSIS), which has been originally upgraded from the KASI solar spectrograph that was able to record solar spectra for a given slit region and to inspect the response function of narrow band filters. A prototype KSIS was developed in 2004 by using a scanning mirror in front of the spectrograph slit and a SBIG ST-8XE CCD camera. Its main disadvantage is that it took a long time (about 13 minutes) to scan a whole active region. In this work, we have upgraded the KSIS by installing a much faster Dalsa 1M15 CCD camera, which gives a data acquisition time of about 2.5 minutes. The software for KSIS was also improved for the new CCD camera on the basis of component-based development method. We have successfully made a test observation for a simple and small active region (AR10910) using the improved KSIS system. Our observations show that H-alpha images for several wavelengths have typical features in a sunspot as well as a H-alpha centerline image is quite similar to a BBSO H-alpha image, demonstrating the capability of the KSIS system.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.379-384
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• 2015

An infrared image sensor is a core device in a thermal imaging system. The fabrication method of a focal plane array (FPA) is a key technology for a high resolution infrared image sensor. Each pixels in the FPA have $Si_3N_4/SiO_2$ membranes including legs to deposit bolometric materials and electrodes on Si readout circuits (ROIC). Instead of polyimide used to form a sacrificial layer, the feasibility of an amorphous silicon (${\alpha}-Si$) was verified experimentally in a $8{\times}8$ micro-bolometer array with a $50{\mu}m$ pitch. The elimination of the polyimide sacrificial layer hardened by a following plasma assisted deposition process is sometimes far from perfect, and thus requires longer plasma ashing times leading to the deformation of the membrane and leg. Since the amorphous Si could be removed in $XeF_2$ gas at room temperature, however, the fabricated micro-bolomertic structure was not damaged seriously. A radio frequency (RF) sputtered nickel oxide film was grown on a $Si_3N_4/SiO_2$ membrane fabricated using a low stress silicon nitride (LSSiN) technology with a LPCVD system. The deformation of the membrane was effectively reduced by a combining the ${\alpha}-Si$ and LSSiN process for a nickel oxide micro-bolometer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.533-538
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• 2003

It has been shown that ion implantation produces remarkable improvements in surface-sensitive physical and chemical properties as well as other mechanical properties, in polymers. In this study, ion implantation was performed onto polymer, PC(polycarbonate), in order to investigate surface hydrophilic property through contact angle measurement using distilled water. PC was irradiated with N, Ar, Xe ions at the irradiation energy of $20\;{\sim}\;50keV$ and the dose range of $5{\times}10^{15},\;1{\times}10^{16},\;7{\times}10^{16}\;ions/cm^2$. The contact angle of water has been reduced with increasing fluence and ion mass but increased with increasing implanted energy. The changes of chemical and structural property are discussed in view of infrared spectroscopy and FT-IR, XPS, which shows increasing C-O bonding and C-C bonding. The root mean square of surface roughness examined by means of AFM changed smoothly from 0.387nm to 0.207nm and the change of wettability was discussed with respect to elastic and inelastic collisions obtained as results of TRIM simulation. It was found that wettability of the modified PC surface was affected on change of functional group and nuclear stopping or linear energy transfer(LET, energy deposited per unit track length per ion) that causes chain scission by displacing atom from polymer chains, but was not greatly dependant on surface morphology.

• Annals of Laboratory Medicine
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.512-517
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• 2018

Background: Complete blood count (CBC) results play an important role in peripheral blood smear (PBS) examinations. Many descriptions in PBS reports may simply be translated from CBC parameters. We developed a computer program that automatically generates a PBS draft report based on CBC parameters and age- and sex-matched reference ranges. Methods: The Java programming language was used to develop a computer program that supports a graphical user interface. Four hematology analyzers from three different laboratories were tested: Sysmex XE-5000 (Sysmex, Kobe, Japan), Sysmex XN-9000 (Sysmex), DxH800 (Beckman Coulter, Brea, CA, USA), and ADVIA 2120i (Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Eschborn, Germany). Input data files containing 862 CBC results were generated from hematology analyzers, middlewares, or laboratory information systems. The draft reports were compared with the content of input data files. Results: We developed a computer program that reads CBC results from a data file and automatically writes a draft PBS report. Age- and sex-matched reference ranges can be automatically applied. After examining PBS, users can modify the draft report based on microscopic findings. Recommendations such as suggestions for further evaluations are also provided based on morphological findings, and they can be modified by users. The program was compatible with all four hematology analyzers tested. Conclusions: Our program is expected to reduce the time required to manually incorporate CBC results into PBS reports. Systematic inclusion of CBC results could help improve the reliability and sensitivity of PBS examinations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

This study discusses the effect of using ²³²Th instead of ²³⁸U on the neutronic characteristics and the main operating parameters of the pressurized water reactor (PWR). MCNPX version 2.7 was used to compare the neutronic characteristics of UO₂ with (Th, ²³⁵U)O₂ and (Th, ²³³U) O₂. Firstly, the infinity multiplication factor (K_inf), thermal neutron flux, and power distribution have been studied for the investigated fuel types. Secondly, the effect of Gd₂O₃ and Er₂O₃ on the K_inf and on the radial thermal neutron flux and thermal power has been investigated to distinguish which of them is more suitable than the other in reactivity management. Thirdly, to illustrate the effectiveness of ²³²Th in decreasing the inventory of both the actinides and non-actinides, the concentration of plutonium (Pu) isotopes and minor actinides (MAs) has been simulated with the fuel burnup. Besides, due to their large thermal neutron absorption cross-section, the concentrations of ¹³⁵Xe, ¹⁴⁹Sm, and ¹⁵¹Sm with the fuel burnup have been investigated. Finally, the main safety parameters such as the reactivity worth of the control rods (ρ_CR), the effective delayed neutron fraction β_eff, and the Doppler reactivity coefficient (DRC) were calculated to determine to which extent these fuel types achieve the acceptable limits.