A piezoelectric cantilever energy harvester (PCEH) driven in longitudinal (3-3) vibration mode was fabricated, and its electrical properties were evaluated by varying the resistive load. A commercial PZT piezoelectric ceramic with a high piezoelectric charge constant (d₃₃) of 520 pC/N and the interdigitated (IDT) electrode pattern was used to fabricate the PCEH driven in longitudinal vibration. The IDT Ag electrode embedded piezoelectric laminates were co-fired at 850℃ for 2 h. The 3-3 mode PCEH was successfully fabricated by attaching the piezoelectric laminates to a SUS304 elastic substrate. The PCEH exhibited a high output power of 3.8 mW across the resistive load of 100 kΩ at 100 Hz and 1.5 G. This corresponds to a power density of 10.3 mW/cm³ and a normalized global power factor of 4.56 mW/g²·cm³. Given the other PCEH driven in transverse (3-1) vibration mode, the 3-3 mode PCEH could be better for vibration energy harvesting applications.

Current progress in the development of semiconductor technology in applications involving high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) and power devices is hindered by the lack of adequate ways todissipate heat generated during device operation. Concurrently, electronic devices that use gallium nitride (GaN) substrates do not perform well, because of the poor heat dissipation of the substrate. Suggested alternatives for overcoming these limitations include integration of high thermal conductivity material like diamond near the active device areas. This study will address a critical development in the art of GaN on diamond (GOD) structure by designing for ideal heat dissipation, in order to create apathway with the least thermal resistance and to improve the overall ease of integrating diamond heat spreaders into future electronic devices. This research has been carried out by means of heat transfer simulation, which has been successfully demonstrated by a finite-element method.

A polysilicon-based metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetector was fabricated by means of our new methods. Its photoresponse characteristics were analyzed to see if it could be applied to a sensor system. The processes on which this study focused were an alloy-annealing process to form metal-polysilicon contacts, a post-annealing process for better light absorption of as-deposited polysilicon, and a passivation process for lowering defect density in polysilicon. When the alloy annealing was achieved at about 400℃, metal-polysilicon Schottky contacts sustained a stable potential barrier, decreasing the dark current. For better surface morphology of polysilicon, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) or furnace annealing at around 900℃ was suitable as a post-annealing process, because it supplied polysilicon layers with a smoother surface and a proper grain size for photon absorption. For the passivation of defects in polysilicon, hydrogen-ion implantation was chosen, because it is easy to implant hydrogen into the polysilicon. MSM photodetectors based on the suggested processes showed a higher sensitivity for photocurrent detection and a stable Schottky contact barrier to lower the dark current and are therefore applicable to sensor systems.

The electrocaloric effect in 0.94(Bi_0.5Na_0.5)TiO₃+0.06KNbO3+0.9 wt% G.F.ferroelectricceramics was observed in terms of the temperature change (ΔT) of the fabricated ceramics, Curie temperature Tc, and applied electric field. The specimens were fabricated by a conventional solid-state reaction. T_c appeared near 165∼170℃. The P-E hysteresis showed a tendency to slim down with a temperature increase and finally was slimmest near 150℃. With the increase of temperature, the polarization revealed a gradual decrease, and a sharp decline near T_c. When an electric field of 45 kV/cm was applied, the largest polarization was shown. The maximum value of the temperature change (ΔT=0.31℃) was obtained at 165℃ under an applied electric field of 45 kV/cm.

Fe₂O₃ is one of the most important metal oxides for gas sensing applications because of its low cost and high stability. It is well-known that the shape, size, and phase of Fe₂O₃ have a significant influence on its sensing properties. Many reports are available in the literature on the use of Fe₂O₃-based sensors for detecting gases, such as NO₂, NH₃, H₂S, H₂, and CO. In this paper, we investigated the gas-sensing performance of a Pt-doped ε-phase Fe₂O₃ gas sensor. Pt-doped Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles were synthesized by a Sol-Gel method. Platinum, known as a catalytic material, was used for improving gas-sensing performance in this research. The gas-response measurement at 300℃ showed that Fe₂O₃ gas sensors doped with 3%Pt are selective for NO₂ gas and exhibita maximum response of 21.23%. The gas-sensing properties proved that Fe₂O₃ could be used as a gas sensor for nitrogen dioxide.

TeO_x thin films were deposited at various O₂/Ar gas-flow ratios by a reactive RFmagneton sputtering technique from TeO₂ and Te targets. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results revealed that the TeO_x thin films were amorphous. The structure and chemical composition of the TeO_x thin films were investigated by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The optical characteristics of the TeO_x thin films were investigated by an Ellipsometer and a UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer. According to the O₂/Ar gas-flow ratios, the atomic composition ratio of TeO_x thin films was divided into two regions(x=1-2, 2-3). Different optical characteristics were shown in each region. With an increasing O₂/Ar gas-flow ratio, the refractive index of the TeO_x thin films decreased and the optical bandgap of the films increased.

Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process was evaluated to slice Silicon (Si) for various applications. Specifically, various Si workpieces with various resistances, such as single and multi crystalline Si bricks and wafers were used. As conventional slicing processes, such as slurry-on or diamond-on wire slicing, are based on mechanical abrasions between Si and abrasive, there is a limitation to decrease the wafer thickness as well as kerf-loss. Especially, when the wafer thickness is less than 150 μm, wafer breakage increases dramatically during the slicing process. Single crystalline P-type Si bricks and wafers were successively sliced with considerable slicing speed regardless of its growth direction. Also, typical defects, such as microcracks, craters, microholes, and debris, were introduced when Si was sliced by electrical discharge. Also, it was found that defect type is also dependent on resistance of Si. Consequently, this study confirmed the feasibility of slicing single crystalline Si by WEDM.

ZnO:Al thin films were deposited on glass substrate by RF magnetron sputtering followed by in situ heat treatment in the same chamber. Effects of in situ heat treatment on properties of ZnO:Al thin films were investigated in this study. As heat treatment temperature was increased, crystal quality was improved first and then it was deteriorated, surface roughness was decreased, and sheet resistance was also decreased. The decrease in sheet resistance was caused by increasing carrier concentration due to decreased surface roughness. The decrease in surface roughness resulted in increase of transmittance. Therefore, in situ heat treatment is an effective method for obtaining films with better electrical characteristics.

In this paper, the effects of environmental variables on the output of the floating photovoltaic water systems, which were installed at the Hapcheon dam in South Korea, were investigated, and the correlations between them were analyzed. The system output was linearly proportional to the solar radiation or irradiance. The output was large in spring and autumn because of high irradiance, but low in the summer when the solar module temperature was high. The influence of the module temperature on the system output was limited in the summer, during which the module temperature change affected the system output more than the change of the irradiance did. In addition, in winter and summer, the module temperature tended to decrease with increasing windspeed, but windspeed did not affect module temperature significantly in the spring and autumn. On the other hand, in winter and spring, the irradiance decreased as the windspeed increased because of movement (or circulation) of the photovoltaic modules.

Powder compaction technology is widely used to prepare thermal battery components. This method, however, is limited by the size, thickness, and geometry of the battery components. This limitation leads to excessive cell capacity, overweight, and higher cost of the pellets, which decreases the specific capacities and delays the activation time of thermal batteries. FeS₂ thin-film cathodes were fabricated by tape-casting technology and analyzed by SEM and EDS in this paper. The residual organic binder of the FeS₂ thin-film cathodes decreased with the temperature of the heat treatment, which improved the specific capacity because of the lower resistance. Specific capacities of the FeS₂ thin-film cathodes decreased because of the higher residual binder and the restrictive reaction of active materials with molten salts as the thickness increased. FeS₂ thin-film cathodes showed much higher specific capacity (1,212.2 As/g) than pellet cathodes (860.7 As/g) at the optimal heat-treatment temperature (230℃).

We fabricated 1-D and 2-D diffraction gratings of SiOx anti-reflection (AR) film grown on a quartz substrate and integrated them into a c-Si photovoltaic (PV) submodule. The light-trapping effect of the resulting submodules was studied in terms of the oblique optical incident angle, θ_i. As the θ_i increased, solar conversion efficiency, η, was improved as expected by the increased optical transmission caused by the grating. For θ_i≤30°, the relative solar conversion efficiency, Δη, of a 1-D SiOx (t=300 nm) grating, compared to that of a flat SiOx AR-coated integrated PV submodule, was improved very little, with a small variation of within 2%, but increased markedly for θ_i≥40°. We observed a change of Δη as large as 10.7% and 9.5% for the SiOx grating of period t=800 nm and 1200 nm, respectively. For a 2-D SiOx (t=300 nm) grating integrated PV submodule, however, the optical trapping behavior was similar in terms of θ_i but its variation was small, within ±1.0%.

Thermal batteries, reserve power source, is activated by melting of molten salt at the temperature range of 350~550℃. To immobile the molten state electrolyte when the thermal battery is activated, the binder must be added in electrolyte. Usually, molten salts include 30~40 wt% of MgO binder to ensure electrical insulation as well as safety. However, the conventional MgO binder tends to increase ionic conductive resistance and thus the inclusion of the binder increases the total impedance of the battery. This paper mainly focused on the study of yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as an alternative binder for molten salt. The chemical stability between the molten salt and YSZ is measured by XRD and DSC. And the sufficient path for ionic conduction on molten salt could be confirmed by the enhanced wetting behavior and the enlarged pore size of YSZ. The electrochemical properties were analyzed using single cell tests so that it showed the outstanding performance than that using MgO binder.