• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.417-421
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• 2016

We improve the energy conversion efficiency (ECE) of a dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) by preparing a working electrode (WE) with localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) by inducing Au thin films with thickness of 0.0 to 5.0 nm, deposited via sputtering. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy were used to characterize the microstructure of the blocking layer (BL) of the Au thin films. Micro-Raman measurement was employed to confirm the LSPR effect, and a solar simulator and potentiostat were used to evaluate the photovoltaic properties, including the impedance and the I-V of the DSSC of the Au thin films. The results of the microstructural analysis confirmed that nano-sized Au agglomerates were present at certain thicknesses. The photovoltaic results show that the ECE reached a value of 5.34% with a 1-nm thick-Au thin film compared to the value of 5.15 % without the Au thin film. This improvement was a result of the increase in the LSPR of the $TiO_2$ layer that resulted from the Au thin film coating. Our results imply that the ECE of a DSSC may be improved by coating with a proper thickness of Au thin film on the BL.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1532-1536
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• 2007

A plastic substrate with tiny rectangular pillars less than 100nm is injection molded to study pattern replication in injection molding. The size of the substrate is 50mm ${\times}$ 50mm and 1mm thick. The substrate has 9 patterned areas of which size is 2mm ${\times}$ 2mm respectively. The lengths of the pillars are 50nm, 100nm, 150nm and 200nm and the width and height are 50nm and about 100nm respectively. A pattern master is fabricated by e-beam writing using positive PR(photo resist) and then a nickel stamper replicated from the PR master by nickel electro-plating. Cr is deposited on the PR pattern master before nickel electro-plating as a conducting layer. Using this nickel stamper, several injection molding experiments are done to investigate effects of the injection molding parameters such as mold temperature, injection rate, packing pressure or pattern location on the replication of the patterns under 100nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.735-738
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• 2003

Downsizing electronics requires precision position control with an accuracy of sub-micron order, which demands development of ultra-fine displacive devices. Piezoelectric transducer is one of devices transferring electric field energy into mechanical energy and being capable for fine displacement control. The transducer has been widely used as fine Position control device Multilayer piezoelectric actuator, one of typical piezo-transducer, is fabricated by stacking alternatively ceramic and electrode layers several hundred times followed by cofiring process. Electrode material should be tolerable in the firing process maintaining at ceramic-sintering temperatures up to $1100{\sim}1300^{\circ}C$. Ag-Pd can be used as stable electrode material in heat treatment above $960^{\circ}C$. Besides, adding small quantity ceramic powder allow the actuator to be fabricated in a good shape by diminishing shrinkage difference between ceramic and electrode layers, resulting in avoidance of crack and delamination at and/or nearby interface between ceramic an electrode layers. This study presents synthesis of nano-oxide-added Ag/Pd powders and its feasibility to candidate material tolerable at high temperature. The powders were formed in a co-precipitation process of Ag and Pd in nano-oxide-dispersed solution where Ag and Pd precursors are melted in $HNO_3$ acid.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.15-15
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• 2011

Atom-thick graphene membrane and nano-sized graphene objects (NGOs) hold substantial potential for applications in future molecular-scale integrated electronics, transparent conducting membranes, nanocomposites, etc. To realize this potential, chemical properties of graphene need to be understood and diagnostic methods for various NGOs are also required. To meet these needs, chemical properties of graphene and optical diagnostics of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) have been explored by Raman spectroscopy, AFM and STM scanning probes. The first part of the talk will illustrate the role of underlying silicon dioxide substrates and ambient gases in the ubiquitous hole doping of graphene. An STM study reveals that thermal annealing generates out-of-plane deformation of nanometer-scale wavelength and distortion in $sp^2$ bonding on an atomic scale. Graphene deformed by annealing is found to be chemically active enough to bind molecular oxygen, which leads to a strong hole-doping. The talk will also introduce Raman spectroscopy studies of GNRs which are known to have nonzero electronic bandgap due to confinement effect. GNRs of width ranging from 15 nm to 100 nm have been prepared by e-beam lithographic patterning of mechanically exfoliated graphene followed by oxygen plasma etching. Raman spectra of narrow GNRs can be characterized by upshifted G band and strong disorder-related D band originating from scattering at ribbon edges. Detailed analysis of the G, D, and 2D bands of GNRs proves that Raman spectroscopy is still a reliable tool in characterizing GNRs despite their nanometer width.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.13-17
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• 2017

We investigated the effect of self-assembled BSO nano-defects as pinning centers in BSO-added GdBCO films when the thicknesses of films were varied. 3.5 vol. % BSO-added GdBCO films with varying thicknesses from 200 nm to 1000 nm were deposited on $SrTiO_3$ (STO) substrate by using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process. For the films with thicknesses of 400 nm and 600 nm, 'anomaly shoulders' in $J_c-H$ characteristic curves were observed near the matching field. The anomaly shoulders appeared in the field dependence of $J_c$ may be attributed to the existence of double pinning mechanisms in thin films. The fit to the pinning force density as a function of reduced field h ($H/H_{irr}$) using the Dew-Hughes' scaling law shows that both the 400 nm- and the 600 nm-thick films have double pinning mechanisms while the other films have a single pinning mechanism. These results indicate that the self-assembled property of BSO result in different role as pinning centers with different thickness.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.240-245
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• 2004

Tensile properties of hard coating material, TiN, were evaluated using micro-tensile testing system. TiN has been known as a hard coating material commonly used today. Micro-tensile testing system consisted of a micro tensile loading system and a micro-ESPI(Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry) system. Micro-tensile loading system had a maximum load capacity of 500mN and a resolution of 4.5 nm in stroke. TiN thin film $1{\mu}m$ thick was deposited on the Si wafer pre-deposited of $Si_3N_4$ film substrate by the closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (CFUBMS) process. Three kinds of micro-tensile specimen with the respective width of $50{\mu}m$, $100{\mu}m$ and $500{\mu}m$ were fabricated by MEMS process. The mechanical properties including tensile strength and elastic modulus were determined using the micro-tensile testing system and compared by those obtained by nano-indentation

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.289-293
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• 2010

To investigate the corrosion behavior of tools steel surface in various coating film, the surface of hard coated Ti-Zr-N film on the tool steel by using magnetron-sputtering methods was researched using various experimental methods. STD 61 steels were manufactured by using vacuum furnace and solutionized for 1hr at $1050^{\circ}C$. Steel surface was coated with Ti-Zr-N film at $150^{\circ}C$ and 100W for 1h by using DC-sputtering equipment. Surface characteristics of Ti-Zr-N film coated specimens were investigated by OM, XRD, FE-SEM and nano-scratch tester. And corrosion behaviors of the coated specimen were investigated by polarization test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EG&G Co, PARSTAT 2273. USA). It was found that Ti-Zr-N film coated sample had a thick coated layer and showed a good wear resistance and corrosion resistance of surface compared with ZrN and TiN coated sample. The corrosion resistance and mechanical property of Ti-Zr-N film coated STD 61 alloy increased as sputtering time increased.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.163-170
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• 2005

The RF integrated noise filters are fabricated by photolithography. The stack for the electromagnetic noise filters consists of the nano-granular ($Co_{41}Fe_{38}AI_{13}O_8$) soft magnetic film / $SiO_2$ / Cu transmission line / seed layer (Cu/Ti) / $SiO_2$-substrate. A good signal-attenuation feature along with a low signal-reflection feature is observed in the present filters. Especially in the noise filter incorporated with a $Co_{41}Fe_{38}AI_{13}O_8$ magnetic film with lateral dimensions of $2000{\mu}m$ wide, 15 mm long and $1{\mu}m$ thick, the maximum magnitude of signal attenuation reaches -55 dB, and the magnitude of signal reflection is below -10 dB in the overall frequency range. And this level of signal attenuation is much larger than that of a noise filter incorporated with a Fe magnetic film.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.449-455
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• 2010

To enhance the efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells, we proposed crystalline anatase-$TiO_{2}$ by using a low temperature process ($150^{\circ}C{\sim}250^{\circ}C$). We successfully fabricated 30 nm-$TiO_{2}$ at a fixed atomic layer deposition condition of 1.0 sec of TDMAT pulse, 20 sec of TDMAT purge, 0.5 sec of H$_{2}$O pulse, and 20 sec of H$_{2}$O purge. In order to examine the microstructure, phase, and band-gap of the TiO$_{2}$ respectively, we employed a Nano-Spec, transmission electron microscope, high resolution XRD, Auger electron spectroscopy, scanning probe microscope, and UV-VIS-NIR. We were able to fabricate a crystalline anatase-phase of 30 nm-TiO$_{2}$ successfully at temperatures above $180^{\circ}C$. Our results showed that our proposed low temperature ALD process (below $200^{\circ}C$) might be applicable to glass and flexible polymer substrates.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.774-779
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• 2013

We synthesized the solution processible monodispersed $TiO_2$ crystalline nano-sol with ~ 5 nm in size by sol-gel method. Through the spin-coating of crystalline $TiO_2$ nano-sol at low processing temperature, we could make even blocking interlayer on the rough FTO transparent electrode substrate. The rough FTO surface could be gradually smoothed by the spin-coating of nano-crystalline $TiO_2$ sol based blocking interlayer. The 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 wt% of nanocrystalline $TiO_2$ sol formed 29, 38, 62, and 226 nm-thick of blocking interlayer in present experimental condition, respectively. The 5 and 10 wt% of $TiO_2$ nano-sol could effectively fill up the valley part of bare FTO with 48.7 nm of rms (root mean square) roughness and consequently enabled the ZnO to be grown to vertically aligned one dimensional nanorods on the flattened blocking interlayer/FTO substrate.