• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.412-416
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• 2016

The electrical properties of Au/n-type Ge Schottky contacts with different contact areas were investigated using current-voltage (I-V) measurements. Analyses of the reverse bias current characteristics showed that the Poole-Frenkel effect became strong with decreasing contact area. The contribution of the perimeter current density to the total current density was found to increase with increasing reverse bias voltage. Fitting of the forward bias I-V characteristics by considering various transport models revealed that the tunneling current is dominant in the low forward bias region. The contributions of both the thermionic emission (TE) and the generation-recombination (GR) currents to the total current were similar regardless of the contact area, indicating that these currents mainly flow through the bulk region. In contrast, the contribution of the tunneling current to the total current increased with decreasing contact area. The largest $E_{00}$ value (related to tunneling probability) for the smallest contact area was associated with higher tunneling effect.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.225-228
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• 2017

In this study, zinc tin oxide (ZTO) films were prepared on indium tin oxide (ITO) glasses and annealed at different temperatures under vacuum to investigate the correlation between the Ohmic/Schottky contacts, electrical properties, and bonding structures with respect to the annealing temperatures. The ZTO film annealed at $150^{\circ}C$ exhibited an amorphous structure because of the electron-hole recombination effect, and the current of the ZTO film annealed at $150^{\circ}C$ was less than that of the other films because of the potential barrier effect at the Schottky contact. The drift current as charge carriers was similar to the leakage current in a transparent thin-film device, but the diffusion current related to the Schottky barrier leads to the decrease in the leakage current. The direction of the diffusion current was opposite to that of the drift current resulting in a two-fold enhancement of the cut-off effect of leakage drift current due to the diffusion current, and improved performance of the device with the Schottky barrier. Hence, the thin film with an amorphous structure easily becomes a Schottky contact.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.586-591
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• 2021

This paper proposes a mathematical model that can calculate the luminescence characteristics driven by alternating current (AC) power using the current-voltage-luminance (I-V-L) properties of organic light emitting devices (OLED) driven by direct current power. Fluorescent OLEDs are manufactured to verify the model, and I-V-L characteristics driven by DC and AC are measured. The current efficiency of DC driven OLED can be divided into three sections. Region 1 is a section where the recombination efficiency increases as the carrier reaches the emission layer in proportion to the increase of the DC voltage. Region 2 is a section in which the maximum luminous efficiency is stably maintained. Region 3 is a section where the luminous efficiency decreases due to excess carriers. Therefore, the fitting equation is derived by dividing the current density and luminance of the DC driven OLED into three regions, and the current density and luminance of the AC driven OLED are calculated from the fitting equation. As a result, the measured and calculated values of the AC driving I-V-L characteristics show deviations of 4.7% for current density, 2.9 % for luminance, and 1.9 % for luminous efficiency.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.471.2-471.2
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• 2014

We demonstrate here that an improvement in precursor film density (green density) leads to a great enhancement in the photovoltaic performance of CuInSe2 (CISe) thin film solar cells fabricated with Cu-In nanoparticle precursor films via chemical solution deposition. A cold-isostatic pressing (CIP) technique was applied to uniformly compress the precursor film over the entire surface (measuring 3~4 cm2) and was found to increase its relative density (particle packing density) by ca. 20%, which resulted in an appreciable improvement in the microstructural features of the sintered CISe film in terms of lower porosity, reduced grain boundaries, and a more uniform surface morphology. The low-bandgap (Eg=1.0 eV) CISe PV devices with the CIP-treated film exhibited greatly enhanced open-circuit voltage (VOC, from 0.265 V to 0.413 V) and fill factor (FF, from 0.34 to 0.55), as compared to the control devices. As a consequence, an almost 3-fold increase in the average power conversion efficiency, 3.0 to 8.2% (with the highest value of 9.02%), was realized without an anti-reflection coating. A diode analysis revealed that the enhanced VOC and FF were essentially attributed to the reduced reverse saturation current density (j0) and diode ideality factor (n). This is associated with the suppressed recombination, likely due to the reduction in recombination sites such as grain/air surfaces (pores), inter-granular interfaces, and defective CISe/CdS junctions in the CIP-treated device. From the temperature dependences of VOC, it was confirmed that the CIP-treated devices suffer less from interface recombination.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.38-42
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• 2018

Continuous efforts are being made to improve the efficiency of Si solar cells, which is the prevailing technology at this time. As opposed to the standard front-lit solar cell design, the back-lit design suffers no shading loss because all the metal electrodes are placed on one side close to the pn junction, which is referred to as the front side, and the incoming light enters the denuded back side. In this study, a systematic comparison between the two designs was conducted by means of computer simulation. Medici, a two-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool, was utilized for this purpose. The $0.6{\mu}m$ wavelength, the peak value for the AM-1.5 illumination, was chosen for the incident photons, and the minority-carrier recombination lifetime (${\tau}$), a key indicator of the Si substrate quality, was the main variable in the simulation on a p-type $150{\mu}m$ thick Si substrate. Qualitatively, minority-carrier recombination affected the short circuit current (Isc) but not the opencircuit voltage (Voc). The latter was most affected by series resistance associated with the electrode locations. Quantitatively, when ${\tau}{\leq}500{\mu}s$, the simulation yielded the solar cell power outputs of $20.7mW{\cdot}cm^{-2}$ and $18.6mW{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, respectively, for the front-lit and back-lit cells, a reasonable 10 % difference. However, when ${\tau}$ < $500{\mu}s$, the difference was 20 % or more, making the back-lit design less than competitive. We concluded that the back-lit design, despite its inherent benefits, is not suitable for a broad range of Si solar cells but may only be applicable in the high-end cells where float-zone (FZ) or magnetic Czochralski (MCZ) Si crystals of the highest quality are used as the substrate.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.571-574
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• 2010

Surface recombination loss should be reduced for high efficiency of solar cells. To reduce this loss, the BSF (back surface field) is used. The BSF on the back of the p-type wafer forms a p+layer, which prevents the activity of electrons of the p-area for the rear recombination. As a result, the leakage current is reduced and the rear-contact has a good Ohmic contact. Therefore, the open-circuit-voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) of solar cells are increased. This paper investigates the formation of the rear contact process by comparing aluminum-paste (Al-paste) with pure aluminum-metal(99.9%). Under the vacuum evaporation process, pure aluminum-metal(99.9%) provides high conductivity and low contact resistance of $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$, but It is difficult to apply the standard industrial process to it because high vacuum is needed, and it's more expensive than the commercial equipment. On the other hand, using the Al-paste process by screen printing is simple for the formation of metal contact, and it is possible to produce the standard industrial process. However, Al-paste used in screen printing is lower than the conductivity of pure aluminum-metal(99.9) because of its mass glass frit. In this study, contact resistances were measured by a 4-point probe. The contact resistance of pure aluminum-metal was $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$ and that of Al-paste was $35.69\;m{\Omega}cm$. Then the rear contact was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM).

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.50-55
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• 2022

SiC is a power semiconductor with a wide bandgap, high insulation failure strength, and thermal conductivity, but many deep-level defects. Defects that appear in SiC can be divided into two categories, defects that appear in physical properties and interface traps that appear at interfaces. In this paper, Z_1/2 trap concentration 0 ~ 9×10¹⁴ cm^-3 reported at room temperature (300 K) is applied to SiC substrates and epi layer to investigate turn-on characteristics. As the trap concentration increased, the current density, Shockley-read-Hall (SRH), and Auger recombination decreased, and Ron increased by about 550% from 0.004 to 0.022 mohm.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.833-843
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• 2008

The effect of forward and reverse electrostatic discharge (ESD) on the electro-optical characteristics of oxide vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is investigated using a human body model for the purpose of understanding degradation behavior. Forward ESD-induced degradation is complicated, showing three degradation phases depending on ESD voltage, while reverse ESD-induced degradation is relatively simple, exhibiting two phases of degradation divided by a sudden distinctive change in electro-optical characteristics. We demonstrate that the increase in the threshold current is mainly due to the increase in leakage current, nonradiative recombination current, and optical loss. The decrease in the slope efficiency is mainly due to the increase in optical loss.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.29A no.10
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• pp.42-48
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• 1992

RoA is an important figure of merits for estimating the performance of p-n junction infrared detectors. This paper presents the tunneling current contribution to RoA of $Hg_{1-x}Cd_{x}$Te n$^{+}$-p juction photodiodes. Then, a diffusion model, a thermal generation-recombination model, an indirect tunneling model via trap, and a band-to-band direct tunneling model are considered to calculate RoA. Using these models, RoA depending on temperature, doping concentration, and mole fraction is calculated. Also from these results, under various operating conditions the dominant dark current mechanisms cna be understood.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.115-120
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• 2007

Reliability between passivated and unpassivated process with the base-exposed InGaP/GaAs HBTs was studied. A passivation of HBT was attempted by $SiO_2$ thin film deposition at $300^{\circ}C$ by means of PECVD. Base-exposed InGaP/GaAs HBTs before and after passivation were investigated and compared in terms of DC and RF performance. Over a total period of 30 days, passivated HBTs show only 2% degradation of DC current gain for the high current density of $40KA/cm^2$. The measured thermal resistance of $2{\times}30{\mu}m^2$ single emitter InGaP/GaAs HBT passivated with PECVD $SiO_2$ devices can be extracted and was founded to be 1430 K/W. The estimated MTTF was $2{\times}10^7hr\;at\;T_j=125^{\circ}C$ with an activation energy $(E_a)$ of 1.37 eV.