A carbon-based hybrid resistor was fabricated using carbon nanotube (CNT) paste as an adhesive layer to establish electrically continuous ohmic contacts between CNT sheets and different CNT sheet or copper based metal alloy plates, and its electrical properties were evaluated. CNT sheets were fabricated using vacuum filtration with a CNT solution dispersed in isopropyl alcohol (IPA) solvent. The electrical characteristics of these carbon-based hybrid resistors were investigated.The CNT paste fulfilled the requirements for forming ohmic contacts between CNT sheets and metal alloy plates, which was attributed to the lowest work function difference and excellent wettability at the interface.

A shingled PV module is manufactured by dividing and bonding. In this method, the solar cell is divided by lasers and bonded using electrically conductive adhesives (ECAs). Consequently, the manufacturing cost increases because a process step is added. Therefore, we aim to reduce the production cost by reducing the amount of Ag paste used in the solar cell front. Various electrode structures were designed and simulated. The number of fingers was optimized by designing thinner fingers, and the number of fingers with the maximum power conversion efficiency was confirmed. The simulation confirmed the maximum efficiency in the 4-divided electrode pattern. The amount of Ag paste used for each electrode pattern was calculated and analyzed. The number of fingers was optimized by decreasing the width of the finger; this will not only reduce the amount of Ag paste required but also the increase the efficiency.

In this study, two important requirements for the home production of a robot to detect and remove improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are presented in terms of the total cost for robot system development and the performance improvement of the mine detection technology. Firstly, cost analyses were performed in order to provide a reasonable solution following an engineering estimate method. As a result, the total cost for a mass production system without the mine detection system was estimated to be approximately 396 million won. For the case including the mine detection system, the total cost was estimated to be approximately 411 million won, in which labor costs and overhead charges were slightly increased and the material costs for the mine detection system were negligible. Secondly, a method for fabricating the carbon nanotube (CNT) based gas detection sensor was studied. The detection electrodes were formed by a photolithography process using a photosensitive CNT paste. As a result, this method was shown to be a scalable and expandable technology for producing excellent mine detection sensors. In particular, it was found that surface treatments by using adhesive taping or ion beam bombardment methods are effective for exposing the CNTs to the ambient air environment. Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plots were obtained from the electron-emission characteristics of the surface treated CNT paste. The F-N plot suggests that sufficient electrons are available for transport between CNT surfaces and chemical molecules, which will make an effective chemiresistive sensor for the advanced IED detection system.

We researched about a bulk metallic glass system as an additive to an Ag paste for high temperature thermoelectric modules. Bulk metallic glass (BMG) ribbons were produced by using a rapid solidification process (RSP) under a cooling rate condition higher than 10℃/sec. We investigated BMG characteristics of the ribbons by means of x-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in order to evaluate the glass transition temperature (Tg) and the recrystallization temperature (Tx) lower than 400℃. A milling process was also developed to apply the BMG ribbons to a commercial Al paste as an additive for lower sintering temperature.

In this study, we investigated the effect of electrode pattern design on the thermal shock resistance and temperature uniformity of a ceramic heater. A cordierite substrate with a low thermal expansion coefficient was fabricated by tape casting, and a tungsten electrode was printed and used as a heating element. The temperature distribution of the ceramic heater was calculated by a finite-element method (FEM) by considering various electrode patterns, and the tensile stress distribution due to the thermal stress was calculated. In the electrode pattern with a single-line width, the central part of the ceramic heater was heated to the maximum temperature, and the position of the ceramic heater having a double-line width was changed to the maximum temperature, depending on the position of the minimum line width pattern. The highest tensile stress was found along the edges of the ceramic heater. The temperature gradient at the edge determined the tensile stress intensity. The smallest tensile stress was observed for electrode pattern D, which was expected to be advantageous in resisting thermal shock failures in ceramic heaters.

The amount of electric power for photovoltaic power generation depends on the location of the power plant and the direction of solar cell. The solar cell controls the generation of solar power plants. Therefore, the structure of solar cell, manufacturing method, and optic technology were factors contributing to increased solar cell efficiency; however, the technical limit has been reached. Herein, we propose a new method to increase the solar cell efficiency using a wavelength conversion technology that converts ultraviolet and infrared rays, which are not effectively used in solar cells, into effective wavelength of solar cell. We used fluoride Na(Ca)YF₄ phosphor for wavelength conversion. Then, a wavelength-conversion fluorescent paste, prepared using an organic-silicon binder, was used to prepare a film that was applied to Si solar cells. It was confirmed that conversion efficiency improved by 5% or more.

Induction cooktop has a great attention due to its safety, quick heating and cleanness compared to gas oven. However, the materials for induction cookware is limited to steel or stainless-steel which has the magnetic property. Recently, it has been tried to apply various porcelain to induction cookware after printing the silver layer on the bottom of cookware plates and co-firing at high temperature. Glass frits are added in the silver paste to improve an adhesion force between porcelain materials containers and transferred silver layer. The hybrid silver pastes for induction cookware requires the proper electrical resistance and the thermal conductivity with base plates. After sintering process at 800℃, a part of melted glass migrated to the porcelain and the rest of the glass frit was exposed to the surface. It was confirmed that most of the glass frit formed an adhesion layer between the porcelain and transferred silver layer that enhances the adhesion force.

The screen printed technique is one of the electrode forming technologies for crystalline silicon solar cell. It has the advantage that can raise the production efficiency due to simple process. The electrode technology is the core process because the electrode feature is given a substantial factor (for solar cell efficiency). In this paper, we tried to change conditions such as squeegee angle 55∼75°, snap off 0.5∼1.75mm, printing pressure 0.6∼0.3 MPa and 1.6∼2.0 mm finger spacing. As a result, the screen printing process showed an improved performance with an increased height higher finger height. Optimization of fabrication process has achieved 17.48% efficiency at screen mesh of 1.6 mm finger spacing.

Ag paste has been used in the front electrode of the Si-solar cell. It is composed by Ag powder, glass frit, binder, solvent and dispersant. The role of the binder and the solvent is to make a flow and a printing property. However, it was not enough to report the printing properties with the variation of binder in the controled viscosity. In this study, we selected 3 kinds of typical binder which were used as binder for the paste in the industry, such as Ethyl cellulose, Hydroxypropyl cellulose and Acrylic. Ag pastes using these were prepared, controled viscosity and printed on the SiNx coated Si wafer. In the ‘A paste’ used Acrylicbinder, printed hight was highest and ‘H paste’ used Hydroxypropyl cellulose binder was lowest. Because ‘Hpaste’ was high viscosity due to the molecular weight, the solvent was added in the paste to control the viscosity. Therefore, the content of solid was lower in ‘H paste’. The relative pattern width which is related to the spreading of paste was the best in the case of ‘H paste’ and ’EH paste’ at 30℃. It is thought that the optimization of the relative pattern width is possible for a paste by the controling shear thinning phenomenon. In the case of ‘A paste’, though printing hight was best, the pattern width was dependant on the temperature.

A New Ag-pastes were developed for integrating the high efficiency mono-Si solar cell. The pastes were the mixture of 84 wt% Ag, 2 wt% glass frit, 11 wt% solvent of buthyl cabitol acetate, and 3 wt% additives. After fabricating the Ag-pastes by using a 3-roll mill, they were coated on a SiN_x/n+/p- stacks of a commercial mono-Si solar cell. And the post-thermal process was also optimized by varying the process conditions of peak temperature. The optimized solar cell efficiency on a 6-inch mono-Si wafer was 18.28%, which was the one of the world best performances. It meaned that the newly developed Aa-paste could be adopted to fabricate a commercial bulk Si solar cell.

Two kind of Ag-pastes were prepared for integrating the bulk Si solar cell. One is the Ag-paste with Pb-based glass frit and the other is that with Bi-based glass frit. The pastes were the mixture of 84 wt% Ag, 2 wt% glass frit, 11 wt% solvent of buthyl cabitol acetate, and 2 wt% additives. After fabricating the Ag-pastes, they was coated on a SiN(x)/n+/p- stacks of a commercial mono-Si solar cell. The solar cell efficiency was 17.6% in the case of the Pb-based Ag-paste. However that was 16.2% in the solar cell integrated with the Bi-based Ag-paste. The lower performance in Bi-based Ag-paste was caused by the higher series resistance and the lower shunt resistance in comparison with the Pb-based Ag-paste.

An engine oil sensor based on multiwall carbon nanotubes was fabricated with screen printing method. Since carbon nanotubes are generally intertwined, dispersion of the carbon nanotubes in the binding agent (ethyl cellulose, a-terpineol, frit) is a key factor for large yield of engine oil sensor. By conventional dispersion method, a hand-mill method, the maximum yield was 80% at most. However, we used the hand ultrasonic, in order to increase the yield of the sensors. As a results, our engine oil sensor fabricated by the screen printing method shows excellent yield rate of 97%, when we dispersed a paste by the hand ultrasonic method.

The effect of lead free glass frit compositions on the properties of thick film conductor and resistor pastes were investigated. Two types lead free frits, HBF-A(without Bi2O3) and HBF-B(with Bi2O3) were made from SiO2, B2O3, Al2O3, CaO, MgO, Na2O, K2O, ZnO, MnO, ZrO2, Bi2O3. And Ag based conductor pastes and RuO2 based resistor paste were prepared by mixed with these frits and functional phase(Ag and RuO2), and organic vehicle. The properties of thick film conductor and resistor sintered at 850℃ were studied after printing on Al2O3 substrate. The morphology of the sintered films surface were SEM and EDS were carried out to analysis the chemical composition on resistor surface and state of Ru atom in frit matrix.