• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.501-507
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• 2010

Changes in surface morphology and roughness of dc sputtered ZnO:Al/Ag back reflectors by varying the deposition temperature and their influence on the performance of flexible silicon thin film solar cells were systematically investigated. By increasing the deposition temperature from $25^{\circ}C$ to $500^{\circ}C$, the grain size of Ag thin films increased from 100 nm to 1000 nm and the grain size distribution became irregular, which resulted in an increment of surface roughness from 6.6 nm to 46.6 nm. Even after the 100 nm thick ZnO:Al film deposition, the surface morphology and roughness of the ZnO:Al/Ag double structured back reflectors were the same as those of the Ag layers, meaning that the ZnO:Al films were deposited conformally on the Ag films without unnecessary changes in the surfacefeatures. The diffused reflectance of the back reflectors improved significantly with the increasing grain size and surface roughness of the Ag films, and in particular, an enhanced diffused reflectance in the long wavelength over 800 nm was observed in the Ag back reflectors deposited at $500^{\circ}C$, which had an irregular grain size distribution of 200-1000 nm and large surface roughness. The improved light scattering properties on the rough ZnO:Al/Ag back reflector surfaces led to an increase of light trapping in the solar cells, and this resulted in a noticeable improvement in the $J_{sc}$ values from 9.94 mA/$cm^2$ for the flat Ag back reflector at $25^{\circ}C$ to 13.36 mA/$cm^2$ for the rough one at $500^{\circ}C$. A conversion efficiency of 7.60% ($V_{oc}$ = 0.93, $J_{sc}$ = 13.36 mA/$cm^2$, FF = 61%) was achieved in the flexible silicon thin film solar cells at this moment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.232-237
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• 2014

We have fabricated white organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) by co-doping of red and blue phosphorescent guest emitters into the single host layer. Tris(2-phenyl-1-quinoline) iridium(III) [$Ir(phq)_3$] and iridium(III)bis[(4,6-di-fluorophenyl)-pyridinato-$N,C^{2^{\prime}}$]picolinate (FIrpic) were used as red and blue dopants, respectively. The effects of dopant concentration on the emission, carrier conduction and external quantum efficiency characteristics of the devices were investigated. The emissions on the guest emitters were attributed to the energy transfer to the guest emitters and direct excitation by trapping of the carriers on the guest molecules. The white OLED with 5% FIrpic and 2% $Ir(phq)_3$ exhibited a maximum external quantum efficiency of 19.9% and a maximum current efficiency of 45.2 cd/A.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.322-322
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• 2010

Recently, anti-reflective films (AR) are one of the most studied parts of a solar cell since these films improve the efficiency of photovoltaic devices. Also, anti-reflection films on the textured silicon solar cells reduce the amount of reflection of the incident light, which improves the device performance due to light trapping of incident light into the cell. Therefore, we preformed two step processes to get textured Si (100) substrate in this experiment. Pyramid size of textured silicon had approximately $2{\sim}9\;{\mu}m$. A well-textured silicon surface can lower the reflectance to 10%. For more reduced reflection, TiO2 anti-reflection films on the textured silicon were deposited at $600^{\circ}C$ using titanium tetra-isopropoxide (TTIP) as a precursor by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and the deposited TiO2 layers were then treated by annealing for 2 h in air at 600 and $1000^{\circ}C$, respectively. In this process, the treated samples by annealing showed anatase and rutile phases, respectively. The thickness of TiO2 films was about $75{\pm}5\;nm$. The reflectance at specific wavelength can be reduced to 3% in optimum layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.226-226
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• 2013

Si is a dominant solar material, which is the second most abundant element in the earth giving a benefit in the aspect in cost with low toxicity. However, the inherent limit of Si has an indirect band gap of 1.1 eV resulting in the limited optical absorption. Therefore, a critical issue has been raised to increase the utilization of the incident light into the Si absorber. The enhancement of light absorption is a crucial to improve the performances and thus relieves the cost burden of Si photovoltaics. For the optical aspect, an efficient design of a front surface, where the incident light comes in, has been intensively investigated to improve the performance of photon absorption. Lambertian light trapping can be attained when the light active surface is ideally rough to increase the optical length by about 50 compared to a planar substrate. This suggests that an efficient design may reduce thickness of the Si absorber from the conventional 100~300 ${\mu}m$ to less than 3 ${\mu}m$. Theoretically, a hole-array structure satisfies an equivalent efficiency of c-Si with only one-twelfth mass and one-sixth thickness. Various approaches have been applied to improve the incident light utilization in a Si absorber using textured structures, periodic gratings, photonic crystals, and nanorod arrays. We have designed hole and pillar structured Si absorbers. Four-different Si absorbers have been simultaneously fabricated on an identical Si wafer with hole arrays or pillar arrays at a fixed depth of 2 ${\mu}m$. We have found that the significant enhanced solar cell performances both for the hole arrayed and pillar arrayed Si absorbers compared to that of a planar Si wafer resulting from the effective improvement in the quantum efficiencies.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.208-218
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• 2023

Photocatalysts are advanced materials which accelerate the photoreaction by providing ordinary reactions with other pathways. The catalysts have various advantages, such as low-cost, low operating temperature and pressure, and long-term use. They are applied to environmental and energy field, including the air and water purification, water splitting for hydrogen production, sterilization and self-cleaning surfaces. However, commercial photocatalysts only absorb ultraviolet light between 100 and 400 nm of wavelength which comprises only 5% in sunlight due to the wide band gap. In addition, rapid recombination of electron-hole pairs reduces the photocatalytic performance. Recently, studies on blackening photocatalysts by laser, thermal, and plasma treatments have been conducted to enhance the absorption of visible light and photocatalytic activity. The disordered structures could yield mid-gap states and vacancies could cause charge carrier trapping. Herein, liquid phase plasma (LPP) is adopted to synthesize Ag-doped black ZnO for the utilization of visible-light. The physical and chemical characteristics of the synthesized photocatalysts are analyzed by SEM/EDS, XRD, XPS and the optical properties of them are investigated using UV/Vis DRS and PL analyses. Lastly, the photocatalytic activity was evaluated using methylene blue as a pollutant.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.112-116
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• 2007

We have investigated the hysteresis phenomenon of a hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film transistor (a-Si:H TFT) and analyzed the effect of hysteresis phenomenon when a-Si:H TFT is a pixel element of active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED). When a-Si:H TFT is addressed to different starting gate voltages, such as 10V and 5V, the measured transfer characteristics with 1uA at $V_{DS}$ = 10V shows that the gate voltage shift of 0.15V is occurred due to the different quantities of trapped charge. When the step gate-voltage in the transfer curve is decreased from 0.5V to 0.05V, the gate-voltage shift is decreased from 0.78V to 0.39V due to the change of charge do-trapping rate. The measured OLED current in the widely used 2-TFT pixel show that a gate-voltage of TFT in the previous frame can influence OLED current in the present frame by 35% due to the change of interface trap density induced by different starting gate voltages.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.99-103
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• 2008

To improve efficiency of solar cells, it is important to make a light trapping structure to reduce surface reflectance for increasing absorption of sun light within the solar cells. One of the promising methods that can reduce surface reflectance is isotropic texturing with acid solution based on hydrofluoric acid(HF), nitric acid($HNO_3$), and organic additives. Anisotropic texturing with alkali solution is not suitable for multicrystalline silicon wafers because of its different grain orientation. Isotropic texturing with acid solution can uniformly etch multicrystalline silicon wafers unrelated with grain orientation, so we can get low surface reflectance. In this paper, the acid texturing solution is made up of only HF and $HNO_3$ for easy controlling the concentration and low cost compared to acid solution with organic additives. $HNO_3$ concentration and dipping time were varied to find the condition of minimum surface reflectance. Textured surfaces were observed Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) and surface reflectance were measured. The best result of arithmetic mean(wavelength from 400 nm to 1000 nm) reflectance with acid texturing is 4.64 % less than alkali texturing.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.315-321
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• 2017

Antireflective pyramid arrays can be readily obtained via anisotropic etching in alkaline solution (KOH, NaOH), which is widely used in crystalline-Si (c-Si) solar cells. The periodic inverted pyramid arrays show even lower light reflectivity because of their superior light-trapping characteristics. Since this inverted pyramidal structures are mostly achieved using very complex techniques such as photolithograpy and laser processes requiring extra costs, here, we demonstrate the Cu-nanoparticle assisted chemical etching processes to make the inverted pyramidal arrays without the need of photolithography. We have mainly controlled the concentration of $Cu(NO_3)_2$, HF, $H_2O_2$ and temperature as well as time factors that affecting the reaction. Optimal inverted pyramid structure was obtained through reaction parameters control. The reflectance of inverted pyramid arrays showed < 10% over 400 to 1100 nm wavelength range while showing 15~20% in random pyramid arrays.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.16-17
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• 2007

To improve efficiency of solar cells, it is important to make a light trapping structure to reduce surface reflectance for increasing absorption of sun light within the solar cells. One of the promising methods that can reduce surface reflectance is isotropic texturing with acid solution based on hydrofluoric acid(HF), nitric acid($HNO_3$), and organic additives. Anisotropic texturing with alkali solution is not suitable for multicrystalline silicon wafers because of its different grain orientation. Isotropic texturing with acid solution can uniformly etch multicrystalline silicon wafers unrelated with grain orientation, so we can get low surface reflectance. In this paper, the acid texturing solution is made up of only HF and $HNO_3$ for easy controling the concentration and low cost compared to acid solution with organic additives. $HNO_3$ concentration and dipping time were varied to find the condition of minimum surface reflectance. Textured surfaces were observed Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) and surface reflectance were measured. The best result of arithmetic mean(wavelength from 400nm to 1000nm) reflectance with acid texturing is 4.64% less than alkali texturing.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.519-525
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• 2015

Positive bias stress-induced instability in amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) bottom-gate thin-film transistors (TFTs) was investigated under high $V_{GS}$/low $V_{DS}$ and low $V_{GS}$/high $V_{DS}$ stress conditions through incorporating a forward/reverse $V_{GS}$ sweep and a low/high $V_{DS}$ read-out conditions. Our results showed that the electron trapping into the gate insulator dominantly occurs when high $V_{GS}$/low $V_{DS}$ stress is applied. On the other hand, when low $V_{GS}$/high $V_{DS}$ stress is applied, it was found that holes are uniformly trapped into the etch stopper and electrons are locally trapped into the gate insulator simultaneously. During a recovery after the high $V_{GS}$/low $V_{DS}$ stress, the trapped electrons were detrapped from the gate insulator. In the case of recovery after the low $V_{GS}$/high $V_{DS}$ stress, it was observed that the electrons in the gate insulator diffuse to a direction toward the source electrode and the holes were detrapped to out of the etch stopper. Also, we found that the potential profile in the a-IGZO bottom-gate TFT becomes complicatedly modulated during the positive $V_{GS}/V_{DS}$ stress and the recovery causing various threshold voltages and subthreshold swings under various read-out conditions, and this modulation needs to be fully considered in the design of oxide TFT-based active matrix organic light emitting diode display backplane.