| AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Energy Frontiers Focus Topic | Monday Sessions |
| Session EN+PS-MoM |
| Session: | Plasmas for Photovoltaics & Energy Applications |
| Presenter: | Suk Jae Yoo, National Fusion Research Institute, Republic of Korea |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) is a unique national laboratory dedicated to conducting research and development of the most powerful plasma energy application, the fusion energy, in Korea: We have constructed and a fully superconducting Tokamak device named KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) which is now successfully in operation, and actively involved in the world's largest joint fusion project - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), in which seven countries are participating to investigate engineering feasibility of fusion power commercialization.
Besides the fusion research, the NFRI has actively developed various plasma applications related to energy harvesting such as silicon quantum dot solar cells and plasma-enhanced coal gasification.
We have challengingly developed a new fabrication method of the silicon quantum dot solar cell by using hyperthermal neutral beams which are neutral beams with an energy range of 1 ~ 100 eV and very effective tools for thin film deposition at much lower substrate temperature without plasma-induced damages. The hyperthermal neutral beams can be effectively applied to each fabrication step of the silicon quantum dot solar cells: Deposition of a silicon thin film consisting of nano-crystal silicon and amorphous silicon matrix, then selective etching of the amorphous silicon matrix by keeping only nano-crystal silicon remained in order to obtain the silicon quantum dots, thereafter dielectric barrier coating on the silicon quantum dot surface, and then repetition of the procedure until a required thickness achieved.
We also have developed a steam plasma torch driven by microwave powers of 2.45 GHz and 915 MHz for effective gasification of various hydrocarbon materials and even low grade coals which can be hardly gasified by conventional thermal gasification methods since the steam plasma torch can produce much more abundant reaction catalysts such as O*, H*, OH*, H2O2, and O3 than the thermal gasification methods. And, furthermore, the microwave plasma torch has a great advantage of the system life time compared to conventional arc plasma torches for which metallic electrodes are inevitable and thus easily eroded by the reaction catalysts produced for the coal gasification.