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This article explores Japanese perceptions of nuclear technology from 1945 to 1956, the early stage of the introduction of nuclear technology, by using discourses of the government and of antinuclear civil movements. It is based on the theoretical framework that discourses construct social perceptions of science and technology. For this purpose, statements such as official documents of the Japanese government and declarations made by the antinuclear movement were used as main resources of analysis. This article finds that various technological aspects influenced the formation of the Japanese nuclear technological system. In addition, the Japanese government tried to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. It tried to justify its ‘peaceful use of nuclear power’ by portraying itself as the sole victim of nuclear weapons while hiding its intention to develop nuclear weapons. Moreover, the nuclear safety myth was formed at the beginning of the introduction of nuclear technology. As a result, we can see that in Japan, the nuclear safety myth was growing from the beginning of the introduction of nuclear technology amid a dichotomous understanding of good and bad uses of nuclear power and the desire to enter an advanced state of science and technology.

Climate change has become one of the highlighted issues of the world, resulting in vulnerability and adverse effects on livelihoods. It leads to an undeniable challenge for policymakers, the government, and other respective associations to formulate effective strategies; however, before formulating any coping, adaptation, or mitigation strategies, understanding the reality and perception of local people is crucial. This study investigated whether local farmers inhabiting Lower Mustang are aware of climatic change. The study comprised various methodologies, such as household surveys, field visits and focus group discussions (FGD). The farmers' responses were consistent with the actual temperature and precipitation data recorded between 1973 and 2018 at meteorological stations situated near the aforementioned regions. The finding shows that the average annual temperature of this region has risen by 0.021 °C/year over the last 45 years. Similarly, the annual precipitation increased 1.83 mm/year on average, which was also acknowledged by local farmers. From the field visit, it was also noticed that the vulnerability of climate change is considerably high and has insufficient capacity to cope with climate change. Thus, the government, and other stakeholders should assist in building the adaptive capacity of this Himalayan region.

Collaboration between public administration organizations and various stakeholders is often prescribed as a potential solution to the current complex problems of governance, such as climate change. According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, shared beliefs are one of the most important drivers of collaboration. However, studies investigating the role of beliefs in collaboration show mixed results. Some argue that similarity of general normative and empirical policy beliefs elicits collaboration, while others focus on beliefs concerning policy instruments. Proposing a new divisive beliefs hypothesis, we suggest that agreeing on those beliefs over which there is substantial disagreement in the policy subsystem is what matters for collaboration. Testing our hypotheses using policy network analysis and data on climate policy subsystems in 11 countries (Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Sweden, and Taiwan), we find belief similarity to be a stronger predictor of collaboration when the focus is divisive beliefs rather than normative and empirical policy beliefs or beliefs concerning policy instruments. This knowledge can be useful for managing collaborative governance networks because it helps to identify potential competing coalitions and to broker compromises between them.

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted significant attention for their outstanding optoelectrical properties. Unlike most TMDs with layer-dependent photoresponsivity, rhenium disulfide (ReS2) shows excellent thickness-independent photoresponsivity. Herein, we show a surfactant-free polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-assisted exfoliation method for 2D-TMDs in aqueous solution and a transparent photosensitive memristor synapse device based on ReS2 nanosheets composited with PVA. ReS2 nanosheets are obtained via PVA-assisted exfoliation. After exfoliation, the ReS2-PVA dispersion solution is spin-coated on a substrate and dried to form a nanocomposite film without additional processing. Transparent memristors are then fabricated on plastic or glass substrates to demonstrate the applicability of the ReS2-PVA film. The devices show "write once, read many" memory behavior with a high ON/OFF current ratio (1.0 × 104 at 0.5 V) during electrical operation. In the high resistive state, synaptic functions with long-term memory behavior are successfully mimicked by applying photonic stimuli to the transparent ReS2-PVA memristors. The excitatory postsynaptic current stimulated by the photosignal is gradually reduced by electric stimuli. The proposed PVA-assisted exfoliation method is cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and applicable to various TMD nanomaterials. Furthermore, the ReS2-PVA nanocomposite film obtained via a simple solution-based process demonstrates excellent photosynaptic behavior.

South Korea has been pursuing energy transition as a national task since 2017 when the first nuclear reactor, Kori-1, was permanently stopped and President Moon Jae-in gave a commemorative speech on June 19, 2017. This study aims to identify who the main speakers of the conventional electricity system are and how they resist the movement of such changes. This study focused on the role of the media and found that the issue of energy transition has been highly politicized. Conservative media have criticized the Moon government’s post-nuclear policy as a leverage and have highlighted problems surrounding renewable energy as it is a hotbed of great corruption. Those who oppose locating renewable energy facilities to their community have taken advantage of such press reports. Energy transition requires more energy citizens who recognize not only their right to enjoy basic energy needs, but also their responsibility for the socio-economic and environmental impacts of their energy use. The realization of energy democracy pursuing energy and climate justice will take time but social dialogue based on scientific evidence and deliberation will open the way toward energy transition while identifying fake news and opposing interests adhering to the conventional electricity system.

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have emerged as promising materials for next-generation electronics due to their excellent semiconducting properties. However, high contact ...

For the effective deicing of the windows of electric vehicles, we fabricated asymmetric multilayered transparent (AMT) film heaters exhibiting a low resistance (5.4 Ω/sq.) and high visible transmittance (88%), resulting in the highest figure of merit (759) reported to date. Also, the simulated transmittance of the AMT films better matched the experimental results when considering the microstructure of the reaction layer between the Ga-doped ZnO and Ag layers. Herein, an unconventional approach considering heat transfer by conduction is described because heat loss from the thick glass (>3 mm) inevitably occurs in the real-world application of vehicle windows. We formulated and simultaneously solved two derivative heat transfer equations considering the thermal loss in the thick glass and heat transfer in the heating films to accurately predict the temperature of the outside glass. To verify our model, we performed a heating test by inserting heated windows in a small-scale automobile model and were able to accurately predict deicing time and heating rates.

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), indoor photovoltaics are attracting considerable interest owing to their potential to benefit various IoT-related fields. Therefore, this study investigates the use of transparent hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells for a broad range of applications, including indoor light harvesting. High-gap triple layers were employed in the a-Si:H solar cells to obtain a high shunt resistance and high short-circuit current

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have emerged as promising materials for next-generation electronics due to their excellent semiconducting properties. However, high contact resistance at the metal-TMDC interface plagues the realization of high-performance devices. Here, an effective metal-interlayer-semiconductor (MIS) contact is demonstrated, wherein an ultrathin ZnO interlayer is inserted between the metal electrode and MoS

This study explores the relationship between energy, the environment, and society in early modern Korea, after its initial contact with electricity and fossil fuels. After reviewing the literature and original sources, the study reached four findings. First, the introduction of electricity and new energy sources was intensely pursued under the belief that civilization and enlightenment based on electricity, fossil fuels, and their relevant Western technologies could help Korea retain its national sovereignty and compete with imperial powers during the gaehwa period. Second, the traditional Korean worldview regarding the interrelationship between humans and nature was partially changed by the introduction of electricity and new energy sources. Third, using electricity and new energy sources changed the way traditional social relations were experienced in Korea, as well as conventional notions of time and space. Lastly, Seoulites in early modern Korea were psychologically prepared to accept and become familiar with electricity and new energy sources, which eventually became the foundation for mentally reorienting Korea toward future industrialization.

Two-dimensional (2D) material-based heterostructures provide a unique platform where interactions between stacked 2D layers can enhance the electrical and opto-electrical properties as well as give rise to interesting new phenomena. Here, the operation of a van der Waals heterostructure device comprising of vertically stacked bilayer MoS2 and few layered WSe2 has been demonstrated in which an atomically thin MoS2 layer has been employed as a tunneling layer to the underlying WSe2 layer. In this way, simultaneous contacts to both MoS2 and WSe2 2D layers have been established by forming a direct metal–semiconductor to MoS2 and a tunneling-based metal–insulator–semiconductor contacts to WSe2, respectively. The use of MoS2 as a dielectric tunneling layer results in an improved contact resistance (80 kΩ μm) for WSe2 contact, which is attributed to reduction in the effective Schottky barrier height and is also confirmed from the temperature-dependent measurement. Furthermore, this unique contact engineering and...

We demonstrate a high-performance photodetector with multilayer tin diselenide (SnSe2) exfoliated from a high-quality crystal which was synthesized by the temperature gradient growth method. This SnSe2 photodetector exhibits high photoresponsivity of 5.11 × 105 A W-1 and high specific detectivity of 2.79 × 1013 Jones under laser irradiation (λ = 450 nm). We also observed a reproducible and stable time-resolved photoresponse to the incident laser beam from this SnSe2 photodetector, which can be used as a promising material for future optoelectronic applications.

We reported highly flexible a-Si:H thin film solar cells with p-type poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) window. We firstly adopted the substrate-type cell structure on 75 μm-thick polyimide (PI) film unlike earlier studies in which the superstrate-type cell structures were utilized and the deformation of PEDOT:PSS was inevitably caused by subsequent deposition processes. We clearly demonstrated that the performance of the hybrid a-Si:H thin film solar cells with the substrate-type structure was superior to that of the superstrate-type cells. A highly boron-doped interlayer (IL) of 5 nm thickness was introduced at the hetero-interface between the p-type PEDOT:PSS and intrinsic a-Si:H to enhance built-in potential and form a homogeneous p/i-junction in the cell, which led to further improvement in the cell performance. The efficiencies of the cells with the PEDOT:PSS/IL window on glass and PI substrates were 7.40% and 6.52%, respectively, which were considerably higher than that of the cell with a conventional p-type microcrystalline (μc-) Si:H window. Also, the degradation of the cell with PEDOT:PSS window by bending was much smaller than the cell with p-type μc-Si:H window, particularly at bending radius

This work reports a breakthrough technique for achieving high quality and uniform molybdenum dichalcogenide (MoX2 where X = S, Se) films on large-area wafers via metal-agglomeration-suppressed growth (MASG) with small chalcogen (X-) molecules at growth temperatures (TG) of 600 °C or lower. In order to grow MoS2 films suitable for field effect transistors (FETs), S-molecules should be pre-deposited on Mo films at 60 °C prior to heating the substrate up to TG. The pre-deposited S-molecules successfully suppressed the agglomeration of Mo during sulfurization and prevented the formation of protruding islands in the resultant sulfide films. The small X-molecules supplied from a thermal cracker reacted with Mo-precursor film to form MoX2. The film quality strongly depends on the temperatures of cracking and reservoir zones, as well as TG. The MoS2 film grown at 570 °C showed a thickness variation of less than 3.3% on a 6 inch-wafer. The mobility and on/off current ratio of 6.1 nm-MoS2 FET at TG = 570 °C were 59.8 cm2 V−1 s−1 and 105, respectively. The most significant advantages of the MASG method proposed in this work are its expandability to various metal dichalcogenides on larger substrates as well as a lower TG enabled by using reactive small molecules supplied from a cracker, for which temperature is independently controlled.

Transparent hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film solar cells, in which the colors of the front and rear faces can be adjusted individually, were developed for implementation in building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) windows. The proposed ultrathin transparent multilayered electrodes (TMEs) are highly conductive and transparent, consisting of a bottom layer of gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO), a thin metal layer of Ag, and an optoelectronic controlling layer (OCL) of GZO. They can be used for both the front and rear electrodes of transparent a-Si:H solar cells, and the resulting solar cells show a 5.0% average power conversion efficiency and 18.3% average transmittance. The various dual colors on the front and rear of the cell can be individually adjusted by changing the thickness of the OCL on each face of the TME, without significantly changing the efficiency. The cell colors were quantitatively investigated using the color coordinates in a chromaticity diagram based on the International Commission on Illumination (CIE; 1931) standard to show that the simulated and observed colors match well under both LED and fluorescent light sources. We also show that the observable color of the BIPV windows is determined by indoor and outdoor light sources, and dynamically varies as a function of illuminance of the light source as the day gradually progresses into night. This study helps to elucidate the color behavior of the BIPV windows and to develop a-Si:H BIPV windows that show various colors with stable electrical power generation.

We propose a method to fabricate two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) layers to overcome issues in typical fabrication processes by promoting the sulfurization reaction of molybdenum (Mo). A thin sputtered-Mo layer was sulfurized using a sulfur (S) thermal cracker to form 2D MoS2 layers. The effects of key process parameters such as cracking-zone temperature (TC-zone), thickness of the sputtered-Mo layer, and Ar pressure during deposition of the Mo layer were systematically investigated. The degree of thermal treatment of evaporated S vapor is controlled by varying TC-zone. The higher TC-zone enabled easy formation of thin MoS2 layers at a low substrate temperature of 250 °C due to the greatly enhanced sulfurization reaction. The thickness of the final MoS2 layers was controlled by changing the initial thickness of the sputtered-Mo film. Ultra-thin MoS2 film about 2-layers-thick was obtained by sulfurizing a 2 A-thick Mo film. The chemical state of the MoS2 layers largely depended on the Ar pressure during the sputtering process of the initial Mo. Lower Ar pressure enhanced MoS2 formation due to more efficient substitution of the MoS2 phase for the MoO3 phase. By using the S thermal cracker, we demonstrate a method to easily fabricate 2D MoS2 layers, excluding some problematic issues such as toxic and expensive reactants, non-vacuum conditions susceptible to contamination, and high substrate temperature.

We investigate the multiscale roles of renewable energy cooperatives (RE co-ops) in South Korea. This paper focuses on citizen participatory RE co-ops as a niche that plays a vital role in the community-led energy pathway. This paper conducted a narrative analysis based on data about RE co-ops' current status and in-depth interviews. We analyzed core changes and inertia in the conventional energy system at the national, regional, and local scales by comparing within and between scales. Each scale consisted of a patchwork of distinguishable subregimes, i.e., market, policy, and culture. We argue that a niche plays the creative role of adjusting the subregimes at each scale grounded in manageable resources such as their economic means, bylaws, and relationships. By identifying a gap between the ideal community-led energy pathway and how each spatial scale works, we show that a strategic political process should fill the gap, especially when niche actors try to actualize energy transition under adverse conditions.