• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.156-161
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• 2020

In this study, hierarchical mesoporous CuO spheres, ZnO flowers, and heterojunction CuO/ZnO nanostructures were fabricated via a facile hydrothermal method. The as-prepared materials were characterized in detail using various analytical methods such as powder X-ray diffraction, micro Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The obtained results are consistent with each other. The H₂S-sensing characteristics of the sensors fabricated based on the CuO spheres, ZnO flowers, and CuO/ZnO heterojunction were investigated at different temperatures and gas concentrations. The sensor based on ZnO flowers showed a maximum response of ~141 at 225 ℃. The sensor based on CuO spheres exhibited a maximum response of 218 at 175 ℃, whereas the sensor based on the CuO/ZnO nano-heterostructure composite showed a maximum response of 344 at 150 ℃. The detection limit (DL) of the sensor based on the CuO/ZnO heterojunction was ~120 ppb at 150 ℃. The CuO/ZnO sensor showed the maximum response to H₂S compared with other interfering gases such as ethanol, methanol, and CO, indicating its high selectivity.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.84-89
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• 2016

We present the rectifying and nitrogen monoxide (NO) gas sensing properties of an oxide semiconductor heterostructure composed of n-type zinc oxide (ZnO) and p-type copper oxide thin layers. A CuO thin layer was first formed on an indium-tin-oxide-coated glass substrate by sol-gel spin coating method using copper acetate monohydrate and diethanolamine as precursors; then, to form a p-n oxide heterostructure, a ZnO thin layer was spin-coated on the CuO layer using copper zinc dihydrate and diethanolamine. The crystalline structures and microstructures of the heterojunction materials were examined using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The observed current-voltage characteristics of the p-n oxide heterostructure showed a non-linear diode-like rectifying behavior at various temperatures ranging from room temperature to $200^{\circ}C$. When the spin-coated ZnO/CuO heterojunction was exposed to the acceptor gas NO in dry air, a significant increase in the forward diode current of the p-n junction was observed. It was found that the NO gas response of the ZnO/CuO heterostructure exhibited a maximum value at an operating temperature as low as $100^{\circ}C$ and increased gradually with increasing of the NO gas concentration up to 30 ppm. The experimental results indicate that the spin-coated ZnO/CuO heterojunction structure has significant potential applications for gas sensors and other oxide electronics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.449-454
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• 2002

The use of a thin film of indium between the ITO and the $n^+-lnP$ contact layers for InP/InGaAs HPTs was studied without degrading its excellent optical transmittance properties. $ITO/n^+-lnP$ ohmic contact was successfully achieved by the deposition of indium and annealing. The specific contact resistance of about $6.6{\times}10^{-4}\Omega\textrm{cm}^2$ was measured by use of the transmission line method (TLM). However, as the thermal annealing was just performed to $ITO/n^+-lnP$ contact without the deposition of indium between ITO and $n^+-lnP$, it exhibited Schottky characteristics. In the applications, the DC characteristics of InP/InGaAs HPTs with ITO emitter contacts was compared with those of InP/InGaAs HBTs with the opaque emitter contacts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.97-98
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• 2008

n-ZnO/p-Si heterostructure is a good candidate for ZnO-based heterojunction light emitting diodes(LED) because of its competitive price and lower driving voltage. However, the conventional LED shows much lower extraction efficiency, because it has small top contact and large backside contact. In this structure, the injected current from the top contact enters the active region underneath the top contact. Thus, the emitted light is hindered by the opaque top contact. This problem can be solved by using a current-blocking layer(CBL) that prevents the current injection into the active region below the top contact.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.34-38
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• 2011

In this study, the effects of an annealed buffer layer with different thickness on heterojunction diodes based on the ZnO/ZnO/p-Si(111) systems were reported. The effects of an annealed buffer layer with different thickness on the structural, optical, and electrical properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) films on p-Si(111) were also studied. Before zinc oxide (ZnO) deposition, different thicknesses of ZnO buffer layer, 10 nm, 30 nm, 50 nm and 70 nm, were grown on p-Si(111) substrates using a radio-frequency sputtering system; samples were subsequently annealed at $700^{\circ}C$ for 10 minutes in $N_2$ in a horizontal thermal furnace. Zinc oxide (ZnO) films with a width of 280nm were also deposited using a radio-frequency sputtering system on the annealed ZnO/p-Si (111) substrates at room temperature; samples were subsequently annealed at $700^{\circ}C$ for 30 minutes in $N_2$. In this experiment, the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films were studied by XRD (X-ray diffraction), and room temperature PL (photoluminescence) measurements, respectively. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics were measured with a semiconductor parameter analyzer. The thermal tensile stress was found to decrease with increasing buffer layer thickness. Among the ZnO/ZnO/p-Si(111) diodes fabricated in this study, the sample that was formed with the condition of a 50 nm thick ZnO buffer layer showed a strong c-axis preferred orientation and I-V characteristics suitable for a heterojunction diode.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.337-342
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• 2022

Hydrogen (H₂) gas is widely preferred for use as a renewable energy source owing to its characteristics such as environmental friendliness and a high energy density. However, H₂ can easily reverse or explode due to minor external factors. Therefore, H₂ gas monitoring is crucial, especially when the H₂ concentration is close to the lower explosive limit. In this study, metal oxide materials and their p-n heterojunctions were synthesized by a hydrothermal-assisted dip-coating method. The synthesized thin films were used as sensing materials for H₂ gas. When the H₂ concentration was varied, all metal oxide materials exhibited different gas sensitivities. The performance of the metal oxide gas sensor was analyzed to identify parameters that could improve the performance, such as the choice of the metal oxide material, effect of the p-n heterojunctions, and operating temperature conditions of the gas sensor. The experimental results demonstrated that a CuO/ZnO gas sensor with a p-n heterojunction exhibited a high sensitivity and fast response time (134.9% and 8 s, respectively) to 5% H₂ gas at an operating temperature of 300℃.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.406-412
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• 1995

A n-CdS thin films were evaporated by thermal evaporation method and their structure, optical transmission spectra and electrical characteristics were investigated. The photovoltaic characteristics of solar cells which were fabricated in optimum conditions measured. The evaporated CdS thin films showed in hexagonal structure and above 80% of optical transmission spectra regardless of impurity doping. The high quality thin films could be obtained at 150.deg. C temperature of substrate, which is useful for solar cell window layer with low resistivity of 6*10$\^$-2/(.ohm.-cm) by In doping We measured the electrical and optical characteristics of the n-CdS/p-InP heterojunction solar cells. The most efficient photovoltaic characteristics of heterojunction solar cells had the open circuit voltage of 0.66V, short circuit current density of 13.85mA/cm$\^$2/, fill factor of 0.576 and conversion efficiency of 8.78% under 60mW/cm$\^$2/ illumination.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.456-462
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• 2019

ZnO thin-films are grown on a p-Si(111) substrate by RF sputtering. The effects of growth temperature and $O_2$ mixture ratio on the ZnO films are investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurements. All the grown ZnO thin films show a strong preferred orientation along the c-axis, with an intense ultraviolet emission centered at 377 nm. However, when $O_2$ is mixed with the sputtering gas, the half width at half maximum (FWHM) of the XRD peak increases and the deep-level defect-related emission PL band becomes pronounced. In addition, an n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode is fabricated by photolithographic processes and characterized using its current-voltage (I-V) characteristic curve and photoresponsivity. The fabricated n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode exhibits typical rectifying I-V characteristics, with turn-on voltage of about 1.1 V and ideality factor of 1.7. The ratio of current density at ${\pm}3V$ of the reverse and forward bias voltage is about $5.8{\times}10^3$, which demonstrates the switching performance of the fabricated diode. The photoresponse of the diode under illumination of chopped with 40 Hz white light source shows fast response time and recovery time of 0.5 msec and 0.4 msec, respectively.

• Solar Energy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 1993

[ $CdS_{0.46}Se_{0.54}$ ] single crystal was grown by a sublimation method. The crystal structure and the temperature dependence of carrier density and mobility of $CdS_{0.46}Se_{0.54}$ single crystal were studied. Heterojunction solar cells of $n-CdS_{0.46}Se_{0.54}/p-Cu_{2-X}S_{0.46}Se_{0.54}$ were fabricated by the substitution reaction. The spectral response, the J-V characteristics and the conversion efficiency of the $n-CdS_{0.46}Se_{0.54}/p-Cu_{2-X}S_{0.46}Se_{0.54}$ heterojunction solar cells were studied. The open-circuit voltage, short-circuit density, fill factor and conversion efficiency of $n-CdS_{0.46}Se_{0.54}/p-Cu_{2-X}S_{0.46}Se_{0.54}$ heterojunction solar cells under $80mW/cm^2$ illumination were found to be 0.48V, $21mA/cm^2$, 0.75 and 9.5%, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.327-327
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• 2009

ZnO with a large band gap (~3.37 eV) and exciton binding energy (~60 meV), is suitable for optoelectronic applications such as ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) and detectors. However, the ZnO-based p-n homojunction is not readily available because it is difficult to fabricate reproducible p-type ZnO with high hall concentration and mobility. In order to solve this problem, there have been numerous attempts to develop p-n heterojunction LEDs with ZnO as the n-type layer. The n-ZnO/p-GaN heterostructure is a good candidate for ZnO-based heterojunction LEDs because of their similar physical properties and the reproducible availability of p-type GaN. Especially, the reduced lattice mismatch (~1.8 %) and similar crystal structure result in the advantage of acquiring high performance LED devices. In particular, a number of ZnO films show UV band-edge emission with visible deep-level emission, which is originated from point defects such as oxygen vacancy, oxygen interstitial, zinc interstitial[1]. Thus, defect-related peak positions can be controlled by variation of growth or annealing conditions. In this work, the undoped ZnO film was grown on the p-GaN:Mg film using RF magnetron sputtering method. The undoped ZnO/p-GaN:Mg heterojunctions were annealed in a horizontal tube furnace. The annealing process was performed at $800^{\circ}C$ during 30 to 90 min in air ambient to observe the variation of the defect states in the ZnO film. Photoluminescence measurements were performed in order to confirm the deep-level position of the ZnO film. As a result, the deep-level emission showed orange-red color in the as-deposited film, while the defect-related peak positions of annealed films were shifted to greenish side as increasing annealing time. Furthermore, the electrical resistivity of the ZnO film was decreased after annealing process. The I-V characteristic of the LEDs showed nonlinear and rectifying behavior. The room-temperature electroluminescence (EL) was observed under forward bias. The EL showed a weak white and strong yellowish emission colors (~575 nm) in the undoped ZnO/p-GaN:Mg heterojunctions before and after annealing process, respectively.