• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.310-313
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• 2014

We report a way to improve the ability of graphene to operate as a gas sensor by applying single stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The sensitivity and recovery of the DNA-graphene sensor depending on the different DNA sequences are analyzed. The different sensor responses to reactive chemical vapors are demonstrated in the time domain. Because of the chemical gating effect of the deposited DNA, the resulting devices show complete and rapid recovery to baseline unlike the bare graphene at room temperature. The application of the pattern recognition technique can increase the potential of DNA-graphene sensors as a chemical vapor classifier.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.715-727
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• 2004

This study was carried out to evaluate non-smoker's exposure levels to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the air of offices in urban areas. A total of 65 offices were selected from two large cities, i.e. Daegu and Daejeon. The field sampling was conducted repeatedly in summer (1999) and winter (1999～2000). The measured ETS markers included respirable suspended particles (RSP as PM$_{40}$ ), vapor and particulate phase ETS markers, including nicotine, 3-ethnyl pyridine (3-EP), ultraviolet absorbing particulate matter (UVPM), fluorescing particulate matter (FPM), and solanseol in ETS particles (SolPM). RSP was measured gravimetrically by a microbalance. The particle samples were then used for the determination of particulate ETS markers by HPLC, while vapor phase markers determined by GC/NPD. The analytical methods were validated for repeatability, linearity, detection limits, and duplication precision. The concentrations of RSP and other ETS markers were significantly higher in smoking offices than non-smoking offices. Despite the similar smoking strength in each office for different seasons, the concentration levels of ETS components appeared to be higher in winter than summer. The contributions of ETS to RSP concentrations based on SolPM, FPM, and UVPM methods were estimated to be in the range of 15.2 ～ 25.3% in smoking offices, whereas 2.4 ～ 15.9% in non-smoking offices. The cooling and heating types did not affect significantly the concentrations of RSP and other ETS markers. Finally, further research issues were suggested to obtain more scientific information on the non-smoker's exposure to ETS with respect to the frame of risk assessment..

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.399-405
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• 1997

We examined the determination of trace amount of germanium in rocks and sediments by hydride vapor generation-ICP-AES. Germanium is formed volatile compounds with various types of acid reagents, but volatilizing of germanium was decreased in the presence of $H_3PO_4$. Sediments and rocks can be dissolved by mixed acids of $HF-HNO_3-H_3PO_4$ without volatilizing loss of germanium in open digestion system and it was possible to determine germanium by hydride generation-ICP-AES without further sample treatment. Detection limit of Ge is reached to 0.08 ppb under the condition of 5M $H_3PO_4$ and 1% $NaBH_4$ as a supporting acid and a reducing reagent, respectively. The measured values by hydride generation-ICP-AES agreed well with the reference values of SRMs as well as the values determined by solution nebulization-ICP-MS.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.420-426
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• 2020

A metal oxide semiconductor gas sensor is operated by measuring the changes in resistance that occur on the surface of nanostructures for gas detection. ZnO, which is an n-type metal oxide semiconductor, is widely used as a gas sensor material owing to its high sensitivity. Various ZnO nanostructures in gas sensors have been studied with the aim of improving surface reactions. In the present study, the sol-gel and vapor phase growth techniques were used to fabricate nanostructures to improve the sensitivity, response, and recovery rate for gas sensing. The sol-gel method was used to synthesize SnO₂ nanoparticles, which were used as the seed layer. The nanoparticles size was controlled by regulating the process parameters of the solution, such as the pH of the solution, the type and amount of solvent. As a result, the SnO₂ seed layer suppressed the aggregation of the nanostructures, thereby interrupting gas diffusion. The ZnO nanostructures with a sol-gel processed SnO₂ seed layer had larger specific surface area and high sensitivity. The gas response and recovery rate were 1-7 min faster than the gas sensor without the sol-gel process. The gas response increased 4-24 times compared to that of the gas sensor without the sol-gel method.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.362-377
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• 2014

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been of particular concern since they are present both in the vapor and particulate phases in ambient air. In this study, a simple method was applied to determine the vapor phase PAHs, and the performance of the new method was evaluated with a conventional method. The simple method was based on adsorption sampling and thermal desorption with GC/MS analysis, which is generally applied to the determination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air. A combination of Carbotrap (300 mg) and Carbotrap-C (100 mg) sorbents was used as the adsorbent. Target compounds included two rings PAHs such as naphthalene, acenaphthylene, and acenaphthene. Among them, naphthalene was listed as one of the main HAPs together with a number of VOCs in petroleum refining industries in the USA. For comparison purposes, a method based on adsorption sampling and solvent extraction with GC/MS analysis was adopted, which is in principle same as the NIOSH 5515 method. The performance of the adsorption sampling and thermal desorption method was evaluated with respect to repeatabilities, detection limits, linearities, and storage stabilities for target compounds. The analytical repeatabilities of standard samples are all within 20%. Lower detection limits was estimated to be less than 0.1 ppbv. In the results from comparison studies between two methods for real air samples. Although the correlation coefficients were more than 0.9, a systematic difference between the two groups was revealed by the paired t-test (${\alpha}$=0.05). Concentrations of two-rings PAHs determined by adsorption and thermal desorption method consistently higher than those by solvent extraction method. The difference was caused by not only the poor sampling efficiencies of XAD-2 for target PAHs and but also sample losses during the solvent extraction and concentration procedure. This implies that the levels of lower molecular PAHs tend to be underestimated when determined by a conventional PAH method utilizing XAD-2 (and/or PUF) sampling and solvent extraction method. The adsorption sampling and thermal desorption with GC analysis is very simple, rapid, and reliable for lower-molecular weight PAHs. In addition, the method can be used for the measurement of VOCs in the air simultaneously. Therefore, we recommend that the determination of naphthalene, the most volatile PAH, will be better when it is measured by a VOC method instead of a conventional PAH method from a viewpoint of accuracy.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.69-77
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• 2005

The electronic nose (e-nose) has been used in food industry and quality controls in plastic packaging. Recently it finds its applications in medical diagnosis, specifically on detection of diabetes, pulmonary or gastrointestinal problem, or infections by examining odors in the breath or tissues with its odor characterizing ability. Moreover, the use of portable e-nose enables the on-site measurements and analysis of vapors without extra gas-sampling units. This is expected to widen the application of the e-nose in various fields including point-of-care-test or e-health. In this study, a PDA-based portable e-nose was developed using micro-machined gas sensor array and miniaturized electronic interfaces. The rich capacities of the PDA in its computing power and various interfaces are expected to provide the rapid and application specific development of the diagnostic devices, and easy connection to other facilities through information technology (IT) infra. For performance verification of the developed portable e-nose system, Six different vapors were measured using the system. Seven different carbon-black polymer composites were used for the sensor array. The results showed the reproducibility of the measured data and the distinguishable patterns between the vapor species. Additionally, the application of two typical pattern recognition algorithms verified the possibility of the automatic vapor recognition from the portable measurements. These validated the portable e-nose based on PDA developed in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.317-324
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• 2015

GNSS was firstly proposed for application in weather forecasting in the mid-1980s. It has continued to demonstrate the practical uses in GNSS meteorology, and other relevant researches are currently being conducted. Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV), calculated based on the GNSS signal delays due to the troposphere of the Earth, represents the amount of the water vapor in the atmosphere, and it is therefore widely used in the analysis of various weather phenomena such as monitoring of weather conditions and climate change detection. In this study we calculated the PWV through the meteorological information from an Automatic Weather Station (AWS) as well as GNSS data processing of a Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) in order to analyze the heavy snowfall of the Ulsan area in early 2014. Song’s model was adopted for the weighted mean temperature model (T_m), which is the most important parameter in the calculation of PWV. The study period is a total of 56 days (February 2013 and 2014). The average PWV of February 2014 was determined to be 11.29 mm, which is 11.34% lower than that of the heavy snowfall period. The average PWV of February 2013 was determined to be 10.34 mm, which is 8.41% lower than that of not the heavy snowfall period. In addition, certain meteorological factors obtained from AWS were compared as well, resulting in a very low correlation of 0.29 with the saturated vapor pressure calculated using the empirical formula of Magnus. The behavioral pattern of PWV has a tendency to change depending on the precipitation type, specifically, snow or rain. It was identified that the PWV showed a sudden increase and a subsequent rapid drop about 6.5 hours before precipitation. It can be concluded that the pattern analysis of GNSS PWV is an effective method to analyze the precursor phenomenon of precipitation.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.212-216
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• 1999

SiC(3C) photodiodes (PDs) were fabricated on p-type Si(111) substrates using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique by pyrolyzing tetramethylsilane (TMS) with $H_{2}$ carrier gas. Electrical properties of SiC(3C) were investigated by Hall measurement and current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. SiC(3C) layers exhibited n-type conductivity. Ohmic contact was formed by thermal evaporation Al metal through a shadow-mask. The optical gain $(G_{op})$ of the SiC(3C)/Si PD was measured as a function of the incident wavelength. For the analysis of the photovoltaic detection of the Sic(3C) n/p PD, the spectral response (SR) has calculated by using the electrical parameters of the SiC(3C) layer and the geometric structure of the PD. The peak response calculated for properly chosen parameters was about 0.75 near 550 nm. We expect a good photoresponse in the SiC(3C) heterostructure for the wavelength range of 400~600 nm. The SiC(3C) photodiode can detect blue and near ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2016

Silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are generally used as antireflection layers and passivation layers on solar cells. In this study, we investigated the properties of silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by PECVD. The passivation properties of $SiN_x:H$ are focused on by making the antireflection properties identical. To make equivalent optical properties of silicon nitride films, the refractive index and thickness of the films are fixed at 2.0 and 90 nm, respectively. This limit makes it easier to evaluate silicon nitride film as a passivation layer in realistic application situations. Next, the effects of the mixture ratio of the process gases with silane ($SiH_4$) and ammonia ($NH_3$) on the passivation qualities of silicon nitride film are evaluated. The absorption coefficient of each film was evaluated by spectrometric ellipsometry, the minority carrier lifetimes were evaluated by quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC) measurement. The optical properties were obtained using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. The interface properties were determined by capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement and the film components were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy detection (RBS) - elastic recoil detection (ERD). In hydrogen passivation, gas ratios of 1:1 and 1:3 show the best surface passivation property among the samples.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.802-806
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• 2004

For the protection of the local air quality and the global atmosphere, the emissions of trace species including nitric oxides (NO and NO$_2$) from gas turbines are regulated by local governments and by the International Civil Aviation Organization. In-situ measurements of such species are needed not only for the development of advanced low-emission combustion concepts but also for providing emissions data required for the sound assessment of the effects of the emissions on environment. We have been developing a laser absorption system that has a capability of simultaneous determination of NO and NO$_2$concentrations in the exhaust jets from aero gas turbines. A diode laser operating near 1.8 micrometer is used for the detection of NO while a separated visible tunable diode laser operating near 676 nanometers is used for NO$_2$. The sensitivities at elevated temperature conditions were determined for simulated gas mixtures heated up to 500K in a heated cell of a straight 0.5 m optical path. Sensitivity limits estimated as were 30 ppmv-m and 3.7 ppmv-m for NO and NO$_2$, respectively, at a typical exhaust gas temperature of 800K. Experiments using the simulated exhaust flows have proven that $CO_2$ and $H_2O$ vapor - both major combustion products - do not show any interference in the NO or NO$_2$ measurements. The measurement system has been applied to the NO/NO$_2$ measurements in NO and NO$_2$ doped real combustion gas jets issuing from a rectangular nozzle having 0.4 m optical path. The lower detection limits of the system were considerably decreased by using a multipass optical cell. A pair of off-axis parabola mirrors successfully suppressed the beam steering in the combustion gas jets by centralizing the fluctuating beam in sensor area of the detectors.