Large absorption band shift has been observed for the azo-dye (disperse red-13, DR-13) attached on the surface of silica spheres. Urethane linkage has been utilized to form covalent bond between azo-dye (-OH) and 3-isocyanatopropyltriethoxysilane (ICPTES, -N=C=O). The synthesized ICPTES-DR-13 (ICPDR) molecules were attached to the silica spheres by the hydrolysis and condensation reaction. Although the absorption peak of DR-13 in methanol is at 510 nm, the absorption peak of the ICPDR-silica spheres shifts to 788 nm. The large absorption peak shift is due to the formation of intramolecular charge-transfer band with large aggregated ICPDR.

We report finding ways to improve the long-term reliability of PV module including the heterostructure with the intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cell. We point out the stability of the products of Panasonic HIT cell. We account for a brief description of the module manufacturing process to investigate the issues of each process and analyze the causes. We carried out the silicon PV module of the glass to glass type under the damp heat test around 1000 hours. However, it degraded around 7% of PV module power after 300 hours exposure in comparison with the initial status (Initial: 12.7 Watt). We investigated possible cause and solutions for the module performance to develop the long-term reliability.

We investigated the influences of dielectric thin film coating on the optical characteristics of c-Si wafers with nanocone (NC) arrays using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. Dielectric thin films on high-refractive-index surface can lower optical reflection and reflection dips appear at the wavelengths where destructive interference occurs. The optical reflection of the NC arrays was lower than that of the dielectric-coated planar wafer in broad wavelength range. Remarkable antireflection effects of the NC array could be attributed to beneficial roles of the NCs, including the graded refractive index, multiple reflection, diffraction, and Mie resonance. Dielectric thin films modified the optical reflection spectra of the NC arrays, which could not be explained by the interference alone. The optical properties of the dielectric-coated NC arrays were determined by the inherent optical characteristics of the NC arrays.

Surface texturing is affected the uniformity and size of pyramid with saw mark defect density. To analysis the influence of the saw mark defect density, we textured various si wafer. When the texturing process proceeds without the saw mark removal, silicon wafer of low-saw mark defect density showed small pyramid size of $3.5{\mu}m$ with the lowest average value of the reflectance of 10.6%. When texturing carried out after removal of the saw mark using the TMAH solution, we obtained a reflectance of about 11% and the large pyramid size of $5{\mu}m$. As a result, saw mark wafers showed a better pyramid structure than saw mark-free wafer. This result showed that saw mark can take place more smooth etching by the KOH solution and saw mark-free wafer is determined to be a factor that have a higher reflectance and a large pyramid.

Aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$) film deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known to supply excellent surface passivation properties on crystalline Si surface. The quality of passivation layer is important for high-efficiency silicon solar cell. double-layer structures have many advantages over single-layer materials. $Al_2O_3/SiN_X$ passivation stacks have been widely adopted for high- efficiency silicon solar cells. The first layer, $Al_2O_3$, passivates the surface, while $SiN_X$ acts as a hydrogen source that saturates silicon dangling bonds during annealing treatment. We explored the properties on passivation film of $Al_2O_3/SiN_X$ stack layer with changing the conditions. For the post annealing temperature, it was found that $500^{\circ}C$ is the most suitable temperature to improvement surface passivation.