• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.401-405
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• 2017

Because silicon thin film solar cells have a high absorption coefficient in visible light, they can absorb 90% of the solar spectrum in a $1-{\mu}m$-thick layer. Silicon thin film solar cells also have high transparency and are lightweight. Therefore, they can be used for building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. However, the contact electrode needs to be replaced for fabricating silicon thin film solar cells in BIPV systems, because most of the silicon thin film solar cells use metal electrodes that have a high reflectivity and low transmittance. In this study, we replace the conventional aluminum top electrode with a transparent aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) electrode, the band level of which matches well with that of the intrinsic layer of the silicon thin film solar cell and has high transmittance. We show that the AZO effectively replaces the top metal electrode and the bottom fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate without a noticeable degradation of the photovoltaic characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.315-315
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• 2016

The hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film solar cells using n/Al or n/Ag/Al back reflector have low short circuit current (Jsc) due to high absorption coefficients of Al or work function difference between n-layer and the metal. In this article, we utilized aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) to raise the internal reflectance for the improvement of short current density (Jsc) in a-Si:H thin film solar cells. It was found that there was a slight increase in the reflectance in the long wavelength range at the process temperature of 125oC due to improved crystalline quality of the AZO back reflector. The optical band gap (Eg) and work function were affected by the temperature and so did the internal reflectance. The increased internal reflectance within the solar cell resulted in Jsc of 14.94 mA/cm2 and the efficiency of 8.84%. Jsc for the cell without back reflector was 12.29 mA/cm2.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.66-69
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• 2002

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon$({\mu}c-Si:H)$ films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature below $300^{\circ}C$. The $SiH_{4}$ concentration$[F(SiH_{4})/F(SiH_{4})+F(H_{2})]$ is critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. At 6% of silane concentration, deposited intrinsic ${\mu}c-Si:H$ films shows sufficiently low dark conductivity and high photo sensitivity for solar cell applications. P-type ${\mu}c-Si:H$ films deposited by Hot-Wire CVD also shows good electrical properties by varying the rate of $B_{2}H_{6}$ to $SiH_{4}$ gas. The solar cells with structure of Al/nip ${\mu}c-Si:H$/TCO/glass was fabricated with single chamber Hot-Wire CVD. About 3% solar efficiency was obtained and applicability of HWCVD for thin film solar cells was proven in this research.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.662-666
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• 2005

Silicon nitride $(SiN_x)$ film is a promising material for anti-reflection coating and passivation of multicrystalline silicon (me-Si) solar cells. In this work, a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system with batch-type reactor tube was used to prepare highly robust $SiN_x$ films for screen-printed mc-Si solar cells. The Gas flow ratio, $R=[SiH_4]/[NH_3]$, in a mixture of silane and ammonia was varied in the range of 0.0910.235 while maintaining the total flow rate of the process gases to 4,200 sccm. The refractive index of the $SiN_x$ film deposited with a gas flow ratio of 0.091 was measured to be 2.03 and increased to 2.37 as the gas flow ratio increased to 0.235. The highest efficiency of the cell was $14.99\%$ when the flow rate of $SiH_4$ was 350 sccm (R=0.091). Generally, we observed that the efficiency of the mc-Si solar cell decreased with increasing R. From the analysis of the reflectance and the quantum efficiency of the cell, the decrease in the efficiency was shown to originate mainly from an increase in the surface reflectance for a high flow rate of $SiH_4$ during the deposition of $SiN_x$ films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.995-998
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• 2003

This paper presents the deposition of poly-Si thin-film and fabrication of a solar cell by VHF-PECVD method. The poly-Si thin films. and pin-type solar cells are fabricated using multi-chamber cluster tool system. A 7.4% conversion efficiency was achieved from poly-Si thin film solar cells with total thickness less than $5{\mu}m$. The physical characteristic was measured by Raman spectroscopy, solar cell characteristic was measured under AM1.5 illumination.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.505-509
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• 2016

We have investigated the characteristics of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film solar cell by inserting barrier layer. The conversion efficiency of a-Si thin-film solar cells on graphite substrate shows nearly zero because of the surface roughness of the graphite substrate. To enhance the performance of solar cells, the surface morphology of the back side were modified by changing the barrier layer on graphite. The surface roughness of graphite substrate with the barrier layer grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reduced from ~2 um to ~75 nm. In this study, the combination of the barrier layer on graphite substrate is important to increase solar cell efficiency. We achieved ~ 7.8% cell efficiency for an a-Si thin-film solar cell on graphite substrate with SiNx/SiOx stack barrier layer.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2013.07a
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• pp.51-52
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• 2013

본 논문에서는 박막형 태양전지 및 LCD 제조공정에서 증착 공정 후 챔버 내부에 쌓이는 Si(실리콘)을 화학적으로 세정하기 위한 F(불소) RADICAL을 공급하는 원격 고밀도 플라즈마를 발생시키기 위한 고출력 Generator에 대해 소개하고자 한다. 개발되어진 Generator는 입력 직류전원을 공유하여 7kW급 단일 Power Amp Module의 상호결합 및 전력분담에 대한 편차 극복을 위한 기술과 고조파 저감비가 우수한 대전력 필터를 구현하였고, 크기 및 부피의 축소를 위하여 필터의 Q Factor의 극대화 기술이 적용되어졌다. 개발된 400kHz 30kW Generator는 NF3 60리터의 대용량 Remote Plasma Source의 리액터를 구동시킬 수 있으며, 38kW급 DC Link, 7kW급 Power Amp module, LC 필터, Controller로 구성되어 진다. 개발된 장치는 실제 플라즈마 공정에서 시험 평가한 결과를 통해 검증할 수 있었다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.228-231
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• 2006

This paper briefly introduces silicon based thin film solar cells: amorphous (a-Si:H), microcrystalline ${\mu}c-Si:H$ single junction and $a-Si:H/{\mu}c-Si:H$ tandem solar cells. The major difference of a-Si:H and ${\mu}c-Si:H$ cells comes from electro-optical properties of intrinsic Si-films (active layer) that absorb incident photon and generate electron-hole pairs. The a-Si:H film has energy band-gap (Eg) of 1.7-1.8eV and solar cells incorporating this wide Eg a-Si:H material as active layer commonly give high voltage and low current, when illuminated, compared to ${\mu}c-Si:H$ solar cells that employ low Eg (1.1eV) material. This Eg difference of two materials make possible tandem configuration in order to effectively use incident photon energy. The $a-Si:H/{\mu}c-Si:H$ tandem solar cells, therefore, have a great potential for low cost photovoltaic device by its various advantages such as low material cost by thin-film structure on low cost substrate instead of expensive c-Si wafer and high conversion efficiency by tandem structure. In this paper, the structure, process and operation properties of Si-based thin-film solar cells are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.660-665
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• 2020

Silicon heterojunction solar cells can achieve high conversion efficiency with a simple structure. In this study, we investigate the passivation characteristics of VOx thin films as a hole-selective contact layer using ALD (atomic layer deposition). Passivation characteristics improve with iVoc (implied open-circuit voltage) of 662 mV and minority carrier lifetime of 73.9 µs after post-deposition annealing (PDA) at 100 ℃. The improved values are mainly attributed to a decrease in carbon during the VOx thin film process after PDA. However, once it is annealed at temperatures above 250 ℃ the properties are rapidly degraded. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to analyze the chemical states of the VOx thin film. As the annealing temperature increases, it shows more formation of SiOx at the interface increases. The ratio of V5+ to V4+, which is the oxidation states of vanadium oxide thin films, are 6:4 for both as-deposition and annealing at 100 ℃, and 5:5 for annealing at 300 ℃. The lower the carbon content of the ALD VOx film and the higher the V5+ ratio, the better the passivation characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.337-344
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• 2024

This work focuses on improving the light-harvesting efficiency of thin-film silicon solar cells through innovative multi-architecture surface modifications. To create a regular optical structure, a lithographic process was performed to form it on a glass substrate through various etching processes, from Etch-1 to Etch-3. AZO was deposited on top of the structures and re-etched to create a multi-architectural surface. These surface-modified structures improved the light absorption and overall performance of the solar cell through changes in optical and physical properties, which we will analyze. In addition, we investigated the effect of post-cleaning on the etched glass structures through EDX analysis to understand the mechanism of the etching action. The results of this study are expected to provide important guidelines for the design and fabrication of solar cells and other photovoltaic devices.