• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.211-211
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• 2012

The electrical loss of the photo-generated carriers is dominated by the recombination at the metal- semiconductor interface. In order to enhance the performance of the solar cells, many studies have been performed on the surface treatment with passivation layer like SiN, SiO2, Al2O3, and a-Si:H. In this work, Al2O3 thin films were investigated to reduce recombination at surface. The Al2O3 thin films have two advantages, such as good passivation properties and back surface field (BSF) effect at rear surface. It is usually deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. However, ALD process is a very expensive process and it has rather low deposition rate. In this study, the ICP-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering method was used to deposit Al2O3 thin films. For optimization of the properties of the Al2O3 thin film, various fabrication conditions were controlled, such as ICP RF power, substrate bias voltage and deposition temperature, and argon to oxygen ratio. Chemical states and atomic concentration ratio were analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In order to investigate the electrical properties, Al/(Al2O3 or SiO2,/Al2O3)/Si (MIS) devices were fabricated and characterized using the C-V measurement technique (HP 4284A). The detailed characteristics of the Al2O3 passivation thin films manufactured by ICP-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering technique will be shown and discussed.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.247-252
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• 2012

Of late, the development of advanced batteries with high power density and capacity has been indispensible for pushing ahead with much wider applications to electric vehicles and smart IT devices. However, a conventional Li-ion battery contains a limited energy density due to various technological challenges such that other types of Li batteries including Li-S and Li-air have been extensively studied due to their interestingly high energy capacities. Sulfur and oxygen, of which both are cathode materials, showing similar physicochemical characteristics have widely been available which may also contribute to the commercialization of these batteries. In this review, we introduce some perspectives in improving these advanced Li batteries through several approaches such as the provision of porous cathode structures, the optimization of cathode-electrolyte interfaces and the modification of Li anodes.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.250-265
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• 2007

In this paper, a fast intermode decision scheme is introduced by efficiently performing the mode decision using statistical hypothesis testing for hierarchical B-picture coding of SVC, in which much computational power is expensed for combined variable block sizes and hierarchical B-pictures. The hypothesis testing in the proposed method is performed on $16{\times}16\;and\;8{\times}8$ blocks to have early termination for RD computation of all possible modes. The early termination in intermode decision is performed by comparing the pixel values of current blocks and corresponding motion-compensated blocks. The proposed scheme exhibits effective early termination behavior in intermode decision and leads to a significant reduction up to 69% in computational complexity with slight increment in bit amounts. The degradation of visual quality turns out to be negligible in terms of PSNR values.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.504-521
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• 2016

Recently, energy harvesting technology has been integrated into wireless sensor networks to ameliorate the nodes' energy limitation problem. In theory, the wireless sensor node equipped with an energy harvesting module can work permanently until hardware failures happen. However, due to the change of power supply, the traditional hierarchical network routing protocol can not be effectively adopted in energy harvesting wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we improve the Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol to make it suitable for the energy harvesting wireless sensor networks. Specifically, the cluster heads are selected according to the estimation of nodes' harvested energy and consumed energy. Preference is given to the nodes with high harvested energy while taking the energy consumption rate into account. The utilization of harvested energy is mathematically formulated as a max-min optimization problem which maximizes the minimum energy conservation of each node. We have proved that maximizing the minimum energy conservation is an NP-hard problem theoretically. Thus, a polynomial time algorithm has been proposed to derive the near-optimal performance. Extensive simulation results show that our proposed routing scheme outperforms previous works in terms of energy conservation and balanced distribution.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.37A no.10
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• pp.865-875
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• 2012

In this paper, we optimize antenna locations for a distributed antenna system (DAS) with distributed antenna (DA) ports equipped with multiple antennas under per-DA port power constraint. Maximum ratio transmission and scaled zero-forcing beamforming are employed for single-user and multi-user DAS, respectively. Instead of maximizing the cell average ergodic sum rate, we focus on a lower bound of the expected signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the single-cell scenario and the expected signal-to-leakage ratio (SLR) for the two-cell scenario to determine antenna locations. For the single-cell case, optimization of the SNR criterion generates a closed form solution in comparison to conventional iterative algorithms. Also, a gradient ascent algorithm is proposed to solve the SLR criterion for the two-cell scenario. Simulation results show that DAS with antenna locations obtained from the proposed algorithms achieve capacity gains over traditional centralized antenna systems.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.435-447
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• 2006

This paper presents an application of the parallel Adaptive Evolutionary Algorithm (AEA) to search an optimal solution of the service restoration in electric power distribution systems, which is a discrete optimization problem. The main objective of service restoration is, when a fault or overload occurs, to restore as much load as possible by transferring the de-energized load in the out of service area via network reconfiguration to the appropriate adjacent feeders at minimum operational cost without violating operating constraints. This problem has many constraints and it is very difficult to find the optimal solution because of its numerous local minima. In this investigation, a parallel AEA was developed for the service restoration of the distribution systems. In parallel AEA, a genetic algorithm (GA) and an evolution strategy (ES) in an adaptive manner are used in order to combine the merits of two different evolutionary algorithms: the global search capability of the GA and the local search capability of the ES. In the reproduction procedure, proportions of the population by GA and ES are adaptively modulated according to the fitness. After AEA operations, the best solutions of AEA processors are transferred to the neighboring processors. For parallel computing, a PC cluster system consisting of 8 PCs was developed. Each PC employs the 2 GHz Pentium IV CPU and is connected with others through switch based fast Ethernet. To show the validity of the proposed method, the developed algorithm has been tested with a practical distribution system in Korea. From the simulation results, the proposed method found the optimal service restoration strategy. The obtained results were the same as that of the explicit exhaustive search method. Also, it is found that the proposed algorithm is efficient and robust for service restoration of distribution systems in terms of solution quality, speedup, efficiency, and computation time.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.273-278
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• 2018

Lithium-ion batteries have been considered the most important devices to power mobile or small-sized devices due to their high energy density. $LixCoO_2$ has been studied as a cathode material for the Li-ion battery. However, the limitation of its capacity impedes the development of high capacity cathode materials with Ni, Mn, etc. in them. The substitution of Mn and Ni for Co leads to the formation of solid solution phase $LiNi_xMn_yCo_{1-x-y}O_2$ (NMC, both x and y < 1), which shows better battery performance than unsubstituted $LiCoO_2$. However, despite a high discharge capacity in the Ni-rich compound (Ni > 0.8 in the metal site), poor cycle retention capability still remains to be overcome. In this study, aiming to improve the stability of the physical and chemical bonding, we investigate the stabilization effect of Ca in the Ni-rich layered compound $Li(Ni_{0.83}Co_{0.12}Mn_{0.05})O_2$, and then Ca is added to the modified secondary particles to lower the degree of cationic mixing of the final particles. For the optimization of the final grains added with Ca, the Ca content (x = 0, 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 at.%) versus Li is analyzed.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.24-31
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• 2013

This paper describes a coordinated control algorithm for rear-side collision avoidance. In order to assist driver actively and increase driver's safety, the proposed coordinated control algorithm is designed to combine lateral control using a steering torque overlay by Motor Driven Power Steering (MDPS) and differential braking by Vehicle Stability Control (VSC). The main objective of a combined control strategy is twofold. The one is to prevent the collision between the subject vehicle and approaching vehicle in the adjacent lanes. The other is to limit actuator's control inputs and vehicle dynamics to safe values for the assurance of the driver's comfort. In order to achieve these goals, the Lyapunov theory and LMI optimization methods has been employed. The proposed coordinated control algorithm for rear-side collision avoidance has been evaluated via simulation using CarSim and MATLAB/Simulink.

• Clean Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.123-143
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• 2012

Supercritical fluid technology (SFT) is recently one of the most new techniques, which has been interested various fields of related chemical industries. SFT is the most effective and practical technology with eco-friendly, energy-savings, and high efficiency as the technique using the advantages of supercritical fluid such as high solvation power, solubility, mass transfer rate, and diffusion rate. Especially, it is necessary to analyze, evaluate, and develop the potential of application techniques using SFT with these characterizations. Therefore in this review, the phase behavior in supercritical fluid at high temperature and pressure of monomers/polymers for the optimization of polymerization process are briefly described, and the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) in supercritical fluid using supercritical polymerization and the performance evaluation of MIPs are introduced.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.631-631
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• 2013

Battery has major drawbacks including its size and life expectancy, and environmental problem. As an alternative, energy harvesting is emerging as a potential solution to replace battery along with more energy-efficient IT devices. The idea of harnessing energy from our living environment is sustainable, semi-permanent, and eco-friendly. Also, unlike battery, energy harvester does not require much space to store energy. Therefore, energy harvesting can provide a better source of power for small, portable, and wireless devices. Among various ways of harvesting energy from our surroundings, triboelectricity is chosen due to its potential to be miniaturized, and efficient. Triboelectric effect occurs as two different materials with different polarity of charge separation come into contact through friction, and then become separated so that electric potential difference is achieved. In this research, such characteristic of triboelectricity is used as a way to convert ambient mechanical energy into electric energy.Series of recent researches have shown promising results that the triboelectric energy harvester can be simple and cost effective. However, sufficient electricity level required to operate mobile devices has not yet been achieved.In this research, our group focuses on the design and optimization of triboelectric energy harvesting device to enhance its output. By using maskless lithography to pattern Kapton film and silicon substrate, which is used as a mold for PDMS thin layer, and sputtering metal electrodes on each side, we fabricate and demonstrate different designs of triboelectric energy harvester that utilizes the contact electrification between a polymer thin film and a metal thin foil. In order to achieve optimized result, the output voltage and current are measured under diverse conditions, which include different surface structure and pattern, material, and the gap between layers.