• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.44 no.6 s.301
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• pp.313-318
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• 2007

ITO (Indium-tin oxide) thin films have been prepared by a sol-gel spinning coating method and fired and annealed in the temperature range of $450-600^{\circ}C$. The XRD patterns of the films indicated the main peak of (222) plane and showed higher crystallinity with increasing an annealing temperature. The surface of the ITO thin films were treated with 0.1 N HCl 20% solution at room temperature. The effects of surface treatment on electrical properties and surface morphologies of the ITO films were investigated with the results of sheet resistance and FE-SEM, AFM images. The samples, subsequently treated with acidic solution for 40 sec showed the sheet resistance of $0.982\;k{\Omega}/square$. The surface treatment using acidic solution diminished the RMS (root mean square) value and the residual carbon content of the ITO films. It seemed that the acid-cleaning of the ITO thin films lead to the decrease of surface roughness and sheet resistance.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.186-194
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• 1996

In this study, ceramic film was coated by a sol-gel process for increasing the adhesion strength between the substrate and copper layer. TEOS and ATSB were used as starting solution of metallic alkoxide. As a result, amorphous-like diffraction pattern after heat treatment at $1200^{\circ}C$ was obtained using X-ray diffractometer. The more contants of $Al_2O_3$ gave rise to the futher advanced cracks. A maximum adhesion strength of 250gf was measured under the condition of 30 Wt.% $Al_2O_3$, which is 5 times greater than that of uncoated one of the ceramic film.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.456-460
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• 1999

Transparent conducting tin (IV) oxide thin films have been studies and developed for the electrode materials of solar cell substrate. Fabrication of tin oxide thin films by sol-gel method is process development of lower cost photovoltaic solar cell system. The research is focused on the establishment of process condition and development of precursor. The precursor solution was made of tin isopropoxide dissolved in isopropyl alcohol. The hydrolysis rate was controlled by addition of triethanolamine. Dip and spin coating technique were applied to coat tin oxide on borosilicate glass. The resistivity of the thin film was lower than 0.1Ω-cm and the transmittance is higher than 90% in a visible range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.505-505
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• 2011

The control of wettability of thin films is of great importance and its success surely brings us huge applications such as self-cleaning, antifogging and bio-passive treatments. Usually, the control is accomplished by modifying either surface energy or surface topography of films. In general, hydrophobic surface can be produced by coating low surface energy materials such as fluoropolymer or by increasing surface roughness. In contrast, to enhance the hydrophillicity of solid surfaces, high surface energy and smoothness are required. Silica (SiO2) is environmentally safe, harmless to human body and excellently inert to most chemicals. Also its chemical composition is made up of the most abundant elements on the earth's crest, which means that SiO2 is inherently economical in synthesis. Moreover, modification in chemistry of SiO2 into various inorganic-organic hybrid materials and synthesis of films are easily undertaken with the sol-gel process. The contact angle of water on a flat silica surface on which the Young's equation operates shows ~50o. This is a slightly hydrophilic surface. Many attempts have been made to enhance hydrophilicity of silica surfaces. In recent years, superhydrophilic and antireflective coatings of silica were fabricated from silica nanoparticles and polyelectrolytes via a layer-by-layer assembly and postcalcination treatment. This coating layer has a high transmittance value of 97.1% and a short water spread time to flat of <0.5 s, indicating that both antireflective and superhydrophilic functions were realized on the silica surfaces. In this study, we assessed hydrophillicity and hydrophobicity of silica coating layers that were synthesized using the sol-gel process. Systematic changes of processing parameters greatly influence their surface properties.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.183-190
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• 1997

Fabrication and crystallization characteristics of yttria($T_2O_3$) stabilized zirconia(YSZ) thin film by sol-gel process were studied. YSZ sol was synthesized with zirconium n-propoxide($Zr(OC_3H_7)_4)$) and yttrium nitrate pentahydrate ($Y(NO_3)_3.5H_2O$). YSZ film was prepared by depositing the polymeric sol on porous $Al_2O_3$ substrate by spin-coating, and the film characteristics were investigated by FRIR, TG-DTA, XRD, DSC, optical microscopy and SEM. The film topology was uniform and cracks were not found. It was found that the annealing temperature and the concentration of stabilizer affect the crystallization of YSZ film. The YSZ film began to crystallize from amorphous to tetragonal phase at 40$0^{\circ}C$, and it was not converted to cubic structure until $1100^{\circ}C$. It seemed that the grains were formed over $700^{\circ}C$and the average grain size was obtained about 0.2$\mu\textrm{m}$.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.555-566
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• 2023

In this study, a composite phase change material (CPCM) produced using the SOL-GEL technique was developed as a thermal energy storage medium for low-temperature applications. Tetradecane and activated carbon (AC) were used as the core and supporting materials, respectively. The tetradecane phase change material (PCM) was impregnated into the porous structure of AC using the vacuum impregnation method, and a thin layer of silica gel was coated on the prepared composite using the SOL-GEL process, where tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) was used as the silica source. The thermal performance of the CPCM was analysed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). DSC results showed that the pure tetradecane PCM had melting and freezing temperatures of 6.4℃ and 1.3℃ and corresponding enthalpies 226 J/g and 223.8 J/g, respectively. The CPCM exhibited enthalpy of 32.98 J/g and 27.7 J/g during the melting and freezing processes at 7.1℃ and 2.4℃, respectively. TGA test results revealed that the AC is thermally stable up to 500℃, which is much higher than the decomposition temperature of the pure tetradecane, which is around 120℃. Moreover, in the case of AC-PCM and CPCM thermal degradation started at 80℃ and 100℃, respectively. The chemical stability of the CPCM was studied using Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, and the results confirmed that the developed composite is chemically stable. Finally, the surface morphology of the AC and CPCM was analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which confirmed the presence of a thin layer of silica gel on the AC surface after the SOL-GEL process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.407.1-407.1
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• 2016

Electrochromism is defined as a phenomenon which involves persistently repeated change of optical properties between bleached state and colored state by simultaneous injection of electrons and ions, sufficient to induce an electrochemical redox process. Due to this feature, considerable progress has been made in the synthesis of electrochromic (EC) materials, improvements of EC properties in EC devices such as light shutter, smart window and variable reflectance mirrors etc. Among the variable EC materials, solid-state inorganics in particular, metal oxide semiconducting materials such as nickel oxide (NiO) have been investigated extensively. The NiO that is an anodic EC material is of special interest because of high color contrast ratio, large dynamic range and low material cost. The high performance EC devices should present the use of standard industrial production techniques to produce films with high coloration efficiency, rapid switching speed and robust reversibility. Generally, the color contrast and the optical switching speed increase drastically if high surface area is used. The structure of porous thin film provides a specific surface area and can facilitate a very short response time of the reaction between the surface and ions. The large variety of methods has been used to prepare the porous NiO thin films such as sol-gel process, chemical bath deposition and sputtering. Few studies have been reported on NiO thin films made by using sol-gel method. However, compared with dry process, wet processes that have the questions of the durability and the vestige of bleached state color limit the thin films practical use, especially when prepared by sol-gel method. In this study, we synthesis the porous NiO thin films on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by using sputtering and anodizing method. Also we compared electrical and optical properties of NiO thin films prepared by sol gel. The porous structure is promised to be helpful to the properties enhancement of the EC devices.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.535-542
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• 1993

It was investigated in this study that a preparation method, activation energy, surface area, pore volume, pore size distribution and DTA analysis of the dry gel in process of producing monolithic porous gel in Li2O-Al2O3-TiO2-SiO2 system by the sol-gel technique using metal alkoxides. Activation energy for gellation according to the variation of water concentration and the kind of catalysts ranged from 10 to 20kcal/mole. Monolithic dry gels were prepared after drying at 9$0^{\circ}C$ when the amount of water for gellation was 4~8 times more than the stoichiometric amount, that was necessary for the full hydrolysis of the mixed metal alkoxide. The specific surface area, the pore volume, the average pore radius of the dried gel at 18$0^{\circ}C$ according to the various kinds of catalyst were about 348~734$m^2$/g, 0.35~0.70ml/g and 10~35$\AA$, respectively. It showed that the dry gels were porous body. As a result ofthe analysis of DTA, it was confirmed that the exothermaic peaks at 715$^{\circ}C$ and 77$0^{\circ}C$ was clue to the crystallization of dried gel.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.544-550
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• 1992

Zirconia gel fibers could be made by drawing from polyester sol containing zirconyl oxychloride during the reaction between ethylen glycol and citric acid. In this case, the critical mole ratio of zirconyl oxychloride to citric acid was about 4 and by adding CaCl2 and calcining the gel fiber in the air, cubic stabilized zirconia fibers having much micropores at surface could be obtained.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.245-246
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• 2006

A propyl alcohol based sol-gel method was used as to replace the 2-methoxyethanol with 1,1,1 tris (hydroxymethyl) ethane for preparation of pzt piezoelectric ceramic. The powder obtained by this sol-gel process were calcined at $900^{\circ}C$ and followed by the sintering at $1100^{\circ}C$ for ca2 hrs as to reach a pyrochlore-free crystal phase. The characterization of synthesized material was carried out by the XRD analysis and the surface morphology were determined by high resolution scanning electronmicroscopy. Further, the prepared small sized pzt thin powders are likely to be used m various applications.