• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.340-340
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• 2016

We have prepared alumina (Al2O3) doped zinc oxide (AZO) films by DC magnetron sputtering (MS) technique and obtained higher self surface texturing at a high target angle (f). We have characterized the films and applied it as a front electrode of a single junction amorphous silicon solar cell. At a lower f the deposited films show higher values of optical gap (Eg), charge carriers mobility & concentration, crystallite grain size and wider wavelength range of transmission. At higher target angle the sheet resistance, surface roughness, haze factor etc for the films increase. For f=72.5o the haze factor for diffused transmission becomes 6.46% at 540 nm wavelength. At f=72.5o the material shows a reduction in crystallinity and evolution of a hemispherical-type sub-micron surface textures. A Monte Carlo method (MCM) of simulation of the AZO film deposition shows that such an enhanced self-surface texturing of the films at higher f is possible.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.70-79
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• 2024

Bad weather conditions such as haze lead to a significant lack of visibility in images, which can affect the functioning and reliability of image processing systems. Accordingly, various single-image dehazing (SID) methods have recently been proposed. Existing SID methods have introduced effective visibility improvement algorithms, but they do not reflect the image's perspective, and thus have limitations that distort the sky area and nearby objects. This study proposes a new SID method that reflects the sense of space by defining the correlation between image brightness and haze. The proposed method defines the haze intensity by calculating the airlight brightness deviation and sets the weight factor of the depth map by classifying images based on the defined haze intensity into images with a large sense of space, images with high intensity, and general images. Consequently, it emphasizes the contrast of nearby images where haze is present and naturally smooths the sky region to preserve the image's perspective.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.434-448
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• 2014

The aerosol characteristics between haze episode and Asian dust event were identified in January and March, 2013 in Gwang-ju of Korea to investigate the metal elements, ionic concentrations and carbonaceous particles of $PM_{2.5}$ and $PM_{10}$. In the haze episode, the concentrations were increased 1~3.2 times of ionic species and 1.6~2.7 of metal elements. Especially, the concentration of $NO{_3}{^-}$, $SO{_4}{^2-}$ and $NH{_4}{^+}$ consists of 50 percent in ionic species during haze episode that was higher than Asian dust event. This suggests that secondary aerosols from anthropogenic air pollution were mainly contributed by haze episode. During the Asian dust event, increase of metal concentrations was higher than haze episode because of remarkable increase of Ti, K and Fe originated from soil. The concentrations of carbonaceous particles were increased 2.5 times during haze episode, and 2.4 times of OC and 2.1 times of EC during Asian dust event in $PM_{2.5}$. However, these aerosol mass concentration does not affect the OC/EC ratio. The average equivalence ratios of cations/anions in $PM_{2.5}$ were 0.99 in haze episodes and 0.94 during non-event day. The neutralization factor of $NH_3$ was higher than that of $CaCO_3$. Futhermore, $NH{_4}{^+}$ aerosol was aged due to atmospheric stagnation that might be affected by the haze episode.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.634-638
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• 2018

Haze is a factor that degrades the performance of various image processing algorithms, such as those for detection, tracking, and recognition using an electro-optical sensor. For robust operation of an electro-optical sensor-based unmanned system used outdoors, an algorithm capable of effectively removing haze is needed. As a haze removal method using a single electro-optical sensor, the dark channel prior using statistical properties of the electro-optical sensor is most widely known. Previous methods used a square filter in the process of obtaining a transmission using the dark channel prior. When a square filter is used, the effect of removing haze becomes smaller as the size of the filter becomes larger. When the size of the filter becomes excessively small, over-saturation occurs, and color information in the image is lost. Since the size of the filter greatly affects the performance of the algorithm, a relatively large filter is generally used, or a small filter is used so that no over-saturation occurs, depending on the image. In this paper, we propose an improved haze removal method using color image segmentation. The parameters of the color image segmentation are automatically set according to the information complexity of the image, and the over-saturation phenomenon does not occur by estimating the amount of transmission based on the parameters.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.567-587
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• 2018

A severe haze event occurred in October 2015 in Gwangju, Korea. In this study, the driving chemical species and the formation mechanisms of $PM_{2.5}$ pollution were investigated to better understand the haze event. Hourly concentrations of $PM_{2.5}$, organic and elemental carbon, water-soluble ions, and elemental constituents were measured at the air quality intensive monitoring station in Gwangju. The haze event occurred was attributed to a significant contribution (72.3%) of secondary inorganic species concentration to the $PM_{2.5}$, along with the contribution of organic aerosols that were strongly attributed to traffic emissions over the study site. MODIS images, weather charts, and air mass backward trajectories supported the significant impact of long-range transportation (LTP) of aerosol particles from northeastern China on haze formation over Gwangju in October 2015. The driving factor for the haze formation was stagnant atmospheric flows around the Korean peninsula, and high relative humidity (RH) promoted the haze formation at the site. Under the high RH conditions, $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $NO_3{^-}$ were mainly produced through the heterogenous aqueous-phase reactions of $SO_2$ and $NO_2$, respectively. Moreover, hourly $O_3$ concentration during the study period was highly elevated, with hourly peaks ranging from 79 to 95ppb, suggesting that photochemical reaction was a possible formation process of secondary aerosols. Over the $PM_{2.5}$ pollution, behavior and formation of secondary ionic species varied with the difference in the impact of LTP. Prior to October 19 when the influence of LTP was low, increasing rate in $NO_3{^-}$ was greater than that in $NO_2$, but both $SO_2$ and $SO{_4}^{2-}$ had similar increasing rates. While, after October 20 when the impact of haze by LTP was significant, $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $NO_3{^-}$ concentrations increased significantly more than their gaseous precursors, but with greater increasing rate of $NO_3{^-}$. These results suggest the enhanced secondary transformation of $SO_2$ and $NO_2$ during the haze event. Overall, the result from the study suggests that control of anthropogenic combustion sources including vehicle emissions is needed to reduce the high levels of nitrogen oxide and $NO_3{^-}$ and the high $PM_{2.5}$ pollution occurred over fall season in Gwangju.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.168-176
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• 2014

Detecting moving objects from a video sequence is a fundamental and critical task in video surveillance, traffic monitoring and analysis, and human detection and tracking. It is very difficult to detect moving objects in a video sequence degraded by the environmental factor such as fog. In particular, the color of an object become similar to the neighbor and it reduces the saturation, thus making it very difficult to distinguish the object from the background. For such a reason, it is shown that the performance and reliability of object detection and tracking are poor in the foggy weather. In this paper, we propose a novel method to improve the performance of object detection, combining a haze removal algorithm and a local histogram-based object tracking method. For the quantitative evaluation of the proposed system, information retrieval measurements, recall and precision, are used to quantify how well the performance is improved before and after the haze removal. As a result, the visibility of the image is enhanced and the performance of objects detection is improved.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.75.1-75.1
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• 2010

Dye sensitized solar cells(DSSCs) have been extensively studied due to their various advantages such as low production cost, colorful design, and eco-friendly process. Long optical path length is one of the most effective method to improve light harvest efficiency for DSSCs. Multi-layered $TiO_2$ nano-structured film with scattering layer has been studied to generate scattering effect by many researchers. It was expected that the difference of refractive index between $TiO_2$ particles and glass frit would generate the light scattering effect and provide the long optical path length. Therefore, to enhance the scattering effect, the frits of $Bi_2O_3-B_2O_3$-ZnO glass system that has the different refractive index were added to $TiO_2$ pastes in this study. First of all, the absorbance and haze factor of $TiO_2$ electrode with dyes and the refractive index of glass frit and $TiO_2$ were measured, respectively. To study the effect of frits, the efficiencies of DSSCs added glass frit and without glass frit were compared. Our results showed slightly higher efficiency with the different absorbance and haze factor of $TiO_2$ and glass frit. It was considered that the light scattering effect would be improved with adding frits to $TiO_2$ paste. Our preliminary studies will be useful for increasing efficiency of DSSCs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.177-177
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• 2010

고효율 비정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지 제작을 위해서는 광파장대에서 optical confinement 능력을 최대화할 수 있는 기술이 필수적이다. 효율적인 photon trapping을 위해서는 back reflector를 사용하거나 전면전극인 투명전도성막의 표면에 요철을 형성하여 포획된 태양광의 내부 반사를 증가시키거나 전면 투명전극에서 반사를 감소시켜 태양광의 travel length를 증가시키는 방법이 일반적이며, 이를 통해 흡수층의 효율을 최대화할 수 있다. 이 중 전면전극으로 사용되는 투명전도성막은 불소가 도핑된 tin-oxide가 주로 사용되었으나, 최근 들어 Al이 도핑된 산화아연막을 이용한 비정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지 개발에 대한 연구도 활발히 진행되고 있다. 투명전극 증착후 표면의 유효면적을 증가시키기 위해 염산 용액을 이용하여 표면 텍스쳐링을 수행한다. 그후 흡수층인 p-i-n 층을 플라즈마 화학기상증착법을 이용하여 형성하는 것이 일반적이다. 이때 표면처리 된 투명전극은 수소플라즈마에 대해 특성이 변하지 않아야 고효율 비정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지 제조에 적용될 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 표면처리 된 AZO 투명전극의 수소플라즈마에 의한 특성 변화에 대해 고찰하였다. 먼저 AZO 투명전극은 스퍼터링 공정을 적용하여 $1\;{\mu}m$두께로 증착하였고, 0.5 wt%의 HCl 용액을 이용하여 습식 식각을 수행하였다. 수소플라즈마 처리 조건은 $H_2$ flow rate 30 sccm, working pressure 20 mtorr, RF power 300 W, Temp $60^{\circ}C$ 이며 3분간 진행하였다. 표면형상은 수소플라즈마 전 후에는 큰 차이를 보이지 않았으며 AZO의 grain size는 각각 220 nm, 210 nm로 관찰되었다. 투명전극의 가장 중요한 특성인 가시광선 영역에서의 투과도는 수소플라즈마 처리전에는 90 % 이상의 투과도를 보였으나, 수소플라즈마 처리 후에는 85 %로 약간 저하된 특성을 보였다. 그러나 이는 박막 태양전지용 전면전극으로 사용하기 위한 투과도인 80 % 이상을 만족하는 결과로, 비정질 박막 실리콘 태양전지 제작에 사용될 수 있다. 또 하나의 중요한 특성인 Haze factor 역시 수소플라즈마 처리 전 후 모두 10 이상의 값을 나타냈다. 하지만 고효율 실리콘 박막 태양전지에 적용하기 위해서는 Haze factor를 증가시키는 공정 개발에 대한 추가 연구가 필요하다.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.84-93
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• 2016

Plant factories with artificial lights require a large amount of electrical energy for lighting; therefore, enhancement of light use efficiency will decrease the cost of plant production. The objective of this study was to enhance the light use efficiency by using filters to diffuse the light from LED sources in plant factory conditions. The two treatments used diffuse glasses with haze factors of 40% and 80%, and a control without the filter. For each treatment, canopy light distribution was evaluated by a 3-D ray tracing method and canopy photosynthesis was measured with a sealed acrylic chamber. Sixteen lettuces for each treatment were cultivated hydroponically in a plant factory for 28 days after transplanting and their growth was compared. Simulation results showed that the light absorption was concentrated on the upper part of the lettuce canopy in treatments and control. The control showed particularly poor canopy light distribution with hotspots of light intensity; thus the light use efficiency decreased compared to the treatments. Total light absorption was the highest in the control; however, the amount of effective light absorption was higher in treatments than the control, and was highest in treatment using filters with a haze factor of 80%. Canopy photosynthesis and plant growth were significantly higher in all the treatments. In conclusion, application of the diffuse glass filters enhanced the canopy light distribution, photosynthesis, and growth of the plants under LED lighting, resulting in enhanced the light use efficiency in plant factory conditions.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.745-759
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• 2013

The characteristics of meteorological conditions and air pollution were investigated in a valley city (Yangsan) on bad visibility days (from 05:00 to 09:00 LST) of the cold half year (November 2008 to April 2009). This analysis was performed using the hourly observed data of meteorological variables (temperature, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, and 2 m and 10 m temperature) and air pollutants ($NO_2$, $SO_2$, $PM_{10}$, and $O_3$). In addition, visibility data based on visual measurements and a visibility meter were used. The bad visibility days were classified into four types: fog, mist, haze, and the mixture (mist+haze). The results showed that the bad visibility days of the four types in the valley city were observed to be more frequently (about 50% of the total study period (99 days except for missing data)) than (27%) those near coastal metropolitan city (Busan). The misty days (39%) in the valley city were the most dominant followed by the hazy (37%), mixture (14%), and foggy days (10%). The visibility degradation on the misty days in Yangsan was closely related to the combined effect of high-level relative humidity due to the accumulation of water vapor from various sources (e.g. river, stream, and vegetation) and strong inversion due to the development of surface radiative cooling within the valley. On the hazy days, the visibility was mainly reduced by the increase in air pollutant (except for $O_3$) concentrations from the dense emission sources under local conditions of weaker winds from the day before and stronger inversion than the misty days. The concentrations of $NO_2$, $PM_{10}$, and $SO_2$ (up to +36 ppb, $+25{\mu}g/m^3$, and +7 ppb) on the hazy days were a factor of 1.4-2.3 higher than those (+25 ppb, $+14{\mu}g/m^3$, and +3 ppb) on the misty days.