• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.413-419
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• 2015

Lanthanum zirconate, $La_2Zr_2O_7$, is one of the most promising candidates for next-generation thermal barrier coating (TBC) applications in high efficient gas turbines due to its low thermal conductivity and chemical stability at high temperature. In this study, bulk specimens and thermal barrier coatings are fabricated via a variety of sintering processes as well as suspension plasma spray in lanthanum zirconates with reduced rare-earth contents. The phase formation, microstructure, and thermo-physical properties of these oxide ceramics and coatings are examined. In particular, lanthanum zirconates with reduced rare-earth contents in a $La_2Zr_2O_7-4YSZ$ composite system exhibit a single phase of fluorite or pyrochlore after fabricated by suspension plasma spray or spark plasma sintering. The potential of lanthanum zirconate ceramics for TBC applications is also discussed.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.315-321
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• 2015

Rare-earth zirconates, such as $La_2Zr_2O_7$ and $Gd_2Zr_2O_7$, have been investigated as one of the candidates for replacing conventional yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) for thermal barrier coating (TBC) applications at higher turbine inlet temperatures. In this study, double-ceramic-layer (DCL) TBCs of YSZ 1st layer and $La_2Zr_2O_7$ top coat layer are fabricated by suspension plasma spray with serial liquid feeders. Microstructures, hardness profiles, and thermal durability of DCL-TBCs are also characterized. Fabricated DCL-TBCs of YSZ/$La_2Zr_2O_7$ exhibit excellent properties, such as adhesion strength (>25 MPa) and electrical thermal fatigue (~1429 cycles), which are comparable with TBCs fabricated by atmospheric plasma spray.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.28-34
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• 2007

The heating unit of direct heating method manufactured as the plasma spray coating of $TiO_2/NiCr$ conductive heating material on the surface of heating unit in order to improve the disadvantages of indirect heating method. $TiO_2$ and NiCr (80wt.%Ni-20wt.%Cr) that had the properties of conduction and heating was chosen for the conductive heating material. The compositions of the composite powders were studied $TiO_2-30wt.%NiCr\;and\;TiO_2-10wt.%NiCr$. As the heating temperature was increased, the hardness of heating layer was increased because of the fine microstructure and the decrease of porosity. The adhesion strength was decreased for coarsening and connection of voids in the insulation layer, and the electrical resistivity of heating layer was increased for fine crack formation and growth. In this study, the best efficient sprayed coatings with heating unit was concluded as the plasma sprayed $TiO_2-10wt.%NiCr$ coatings that was heat treated at $300^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.276-279
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• 2004

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of silicon nitride (SiN) is a proven technique for obtaining layers that meet the needs of surface passivation and anti-reflection coating. In addition, the deposition process appears to provoke bulk passivation as well due to diffusion of atomic hydrogen. This bulk passivation is an important advantage of PECVD deposition when compared to the conventional CVD techniques. A further advantage of PECVD is that the process takes place at a relatively low temperature of 300t, keeping the total thermal budget of the cell processing to a minimum. In this work SiN deposition was performed using a horizontal PECVD reactor system consisting of a long horizontal quartz tube that was radiantly heated. Special and long rectangular graphite plates served as both the electrodes to establish the plasma and holders of the wafers. The electrode configuration was designed to provide a uniform plasma environment for each wafer and to ensure the film uniformity. These horizontally oriented graphite electrodes were stacked parallel to one another, side by side, with alternating plates serving as power and ground electrodes for the RF power supply. The plasma was formed in the space between each pair of plates. Also this paper deals with the fabrication of multicrystalline silicon solar cells with PECVD SiN layers combined with high-throughput screen printing and RTP firing. Using this sequence we were able to obtain solar cells with an efficiency of 14% for polished multi crystalline Si wafers of size 125 m square.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.135-135
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• 2015

Tubes are of extreme importance in industries as for fluid channels or wave guides. Furthermore, some weapon systems such as cannons use the tubes as gun barrels. To increase the service life of such tubes, a protective coating must be applied to the tubes' inner surface. However, the coating methods applicable to the inner surface of the tubes are very limited due to the geometrical restriction. A small-diameter cylindrical magnetron sputtering gun can be used to deposit coating layers on the inner surface of the large-bore tubes. However, for small-bore tubes with the inner diameter of one inch (~25 mm), the magnetron sputtering method can hardly be accommodated due to the space limitation for permanent magnet assembly. In this study, a new approach to coat the inner surface of small-bore tubes with the inside diameter of one inch was developed. Instead of using permanent magnets for magnetron operation, an external electro-magnet assembly was adopted around the tube to confine the plasma and to sustain the discharge. The electro-magnet was operated in pulse mode to provide the strong axial magnetic field for the magnetron operation, which was synchronized with the negative high-voltage pulse applied to the water-cooled coaxial sputtering target installed inside the tube. By moving the electro-magnet assembly along the tube's axial direction, the inner surface of the tube could be uniformly coated. The inner-surface coating system in this study used the tube itself as the vacuum chamber. The SS-304 tube's inner diameter was 22 mm and the length was ~1 m. A water-cooled Cu tube (sputtering target) of the outer diameter of 12 mm was installed inside of the SS tube (substrate) at the axial position. The 50 mm-long electro-magnet assembly was fed by a current pulse of 250 A at the frequency and pulse width of 100 Hz and 100 usec, respectively. The calculated axial magnetic field strength at the center was ~0.6 Tesla. The central Cu tube was synchronously driven by a HiPIMS power supply at the same frequency of 100 Hz as the electro-magnet and the applied pulse voltage was -1200 V with a pulse width of 500 usec. At 150 mTorr of Ar pressure, the Cu deposition rate of ~10 nm/min could be obtained. In this talk, a new method to sputter coat the inner surface of small-bore tubes would be presented and discussed, which might have broad industrial and military application areas.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1995.07c
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• pp.1290-1292
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• 1995

A cylindrical-post magnetron sputtering system was designed for pipe inner coating. The discharge condition was depended on the gas pressure, magnetic field and pipe diameter. At given discharge current, discharge voltage increased a little with pipe diameter. The electron temperature and floating potential increased with magnetic field. The impact ion energy on the pipe increased with bias voltage. The TiN thin-film of $2{\mu}m$ thickness was formed by cylindrical-post magnetron sputtering system under the conditions of the pressure of 5mTorr, the applied voltage of 700V, the discharge current of 500mA, the magnetic field of 300G, and the bias voltage of -100V.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.151-157
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• 2014

The degradation mechanisms of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) were investigated in different thermal fatigue condition in terms of microstructural analyses. The isothermal and cyclic oxidation tests were conducted to atmospheric plasma sprayed-TBCs on NIMONIC 263 substrates. The delamination occurred by the oxide layer formation at the interface, the Ni/Cr-based oxide was formed after Al-based oxide layer grew up to ${\sim}10{\mu}m$ in the isothermal condition. In the cyclic oxidation with dwell time, the failure occurred earlier (500 hr) than in the isothermal oxidation (900 hr) at same temperature. The thickness of Al-based oxide layer of the delaminated specimen in the cyclic condition was ${\sim}4{\mu}m$ and the interfacial cracks were observed. The acoustic emission method revealed that the cracks generated during the cooling step. It was considered that the specimens were prevented from the formation of the Al-based oxide by cooling treatment, and the degradation mode in the cyclic test was dominantly interfacial cracking by the difference of thermal expansion coefficients of the coating layers.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1178-1184
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• 2008

In this study, techniques of ion implantation were used in order to improve the characteristics of metal materials such as the oxidation and wear resistant. In particular it is necessary to develope their oxidation and wear resistant that could be used in severe environmental conditions. There are mainly two elementary technologies including ion implantation and/or thin film coating. Ion implantation method was performed for surface modification. As a result, it was found that some ion implantations methods such as Nb, high-temperature Nb ion implantation and Nb+C combined implantation are somewhat effective for improving the oxidation resistance of TiAl alloy. Furthermore, the fluorine PBII treatment is more effective for improving the oxidation resistance of the TiAl alloy with three-dimensional shapes. The implantation of boron ion into thin film of TiN was also effective for improving the properties of materials like high temperature wear resistance. TiCrN film was applied to the actual seal ring for steam turbines, and it was observed that its sliding property showed a successfully good performance.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.475-480
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• 2003

Nanocomposite of Au doped ZrO$_2$ films was prepared, which could be used as non-linear optic materials, selective absorption and transmission films. After heat treatment of prepared thin film by dip-coating method, the characteristics were investigated by X-ray diffraction, UV-VIS Spectrometer, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Film thickness was about 150 nm, the Au particle size was 15~35 nm. The thin film had a smooth surface roughness about 1.06 nm. Nonlinearity optics was found that films showed absorption peak at 600~650 nm visible region by plasma resonance of Au metal particles.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.149-155
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• 2011

We investigated tribological characteristics of diamond-like carbon (DLC) in a condition with carbon nanotube (CNT) content of 1wt% in aqueous solution. Si-DLC films were deposited by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD) process on Al6061 aluminum alloy. In this study, the deposition of DLC films was carried out in vacuum with a chamber pressure of 10-5 to 10-3 Torr achieved by mechanical pump followed by turbo molecular pump. The surface adsorbed oxygen on the Aluminum substrates was removed by passing Ar gas for 10 minutes. The RF power was maintained at 500W throughout the experiment. A buffer layer of HMDSO was deposited on the substrate to improve the adhesion of DLC coating. At this point CH4 gas was introduced in the chamber using gas flow controller and DLC coating was deposited on the buffer layer along with HMDSO for 50 min. The thickness of 1 ${\mu}m$ was obtained for DLC films on aluminum substrates The tribological properties of as synthesized DLC films were analyzed by wear test in the presence of dry air, water and lubricant such as CNT ink.