• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.250-253
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electroless plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. The Ni contact was formed on the front grid pattern by electroless plating followed by anneal ing at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$ for $15{\sim}30$ min at $N_{2}$ gas to allow formation of a nickel-silicide in a tube furnace or a rapid thermal processing(RTP) chamber because nickel is transformed to NiSi at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$. The Ni plating solution is composed of a mixture of $NiCl_{2}$ as a main nickel source. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. The Ni/Cu contact was found to be well suited for high-efficiency solar cells and was successfully formed by using electroless plating and electroplating, which are more cost effective than vacuum evaporation. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electroless and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.192-193
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electro less plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electro less and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.61.2-61.2
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• 2010

Ag thick-film has usually been used for the front electrode of Si solar cells with the outstanding electrical properties. Ag paste consists of Ag powers, vehicles, frits and additives. Ag paste has broadly been screen-printed on the front side of Si wafer with the merits of low cost and simplicity. The optimal contact formation between Ag electrodes and Si wafer in the front electrode during a fast firing has been considered as the key factor for high efficiency. Although the content of frit in Ag pastes is less than 5wt%, it can profoundly influence the contact formation between Ag and Si under the fast firing. In this study, the effects of lead-free frits on the contacts between Ag and Si were studied with the thermal properties and compositions of various frits. Our experimental results showed that the electrical properties of cells were related to the interface structures between Ag and Si. It was found that current path of electrons from Si to Ag would be possible through the tunneling mechanism assisted by tens of nano-Ag recrystals on $n^+$ emitter as well as Ag recrystals penetrated into $n^+$ emitter layers. These preliminary studies will be helpful for designing the proper frits for the Ag pastes with considering the properties of various Si wafers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.384-385
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• 2006

We studied about conductive pastes of the source-drain contacts for OTFTs(organic thin-film transistors) fabricated by direct printing(screen printing) method. We used Ag and conductive carbon black powder as the conductive fillers of pastes. The conductive pastes were manufactured by various dispersing agents and dispersing conditions and source-drain contacts with $100{\mu}m$ of channel length were fabricated. We could obtain the OTFTs which exhibited different field-effect behaviors over a range of source-dram and gate voltages depending on a kind of conductive fillers used conductive pastes.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.285-289
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• 2015

We prepared silver Schottky contacts to O-polar and nonpolar m-plane bulk ZnO wafers. Then, by considering various transport models, we performed a comparative analysis of the current transport properties of Ag/bulk ZnO Schottky diodes, which were measured at 300, 200, and 100 K. The fitting of the forward bias current-voltage (I-V) characteristics revealed that the tunneling current is dominant as the transport component in both the samples. Compared to thermionic emission (TE), a stronger contribution of tunneling current was observed at low temperature. The reverse bias I-V characteristics were well fitted with the thermionic field emission (TFE) in both the samples. The presence of acceptor-like adsorbates, such as O₂ and H₂O, modulated the surface conductive state of ZnO, thereby affecting the tunneling effect. The degree of activation/passivation of acceptor-like adsorbates might be different in both the samples owing to their different surface morphologies and surface defects (e.g., oxygen vacancies).

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.198-212
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• 2002

The effects of reacted precursors on phase evolution, microstructure, $J_{c}$ and junctional characteristic of the inter-granular contacts were investigated in Ag-sheathed T1-1223 tapes prepared using three kinds of reacted precursors, and compared to those in the tape prepared using an unreacted precursor The precursors were prepared by heat-treating a mixture of Sr-Ba-Ca-Cu-O, $Tl_2$$O_3$, PbO and $Bi_2$$O_3$ powders at $805^{\circ}C$ (precursor I ), $840^{\circ}C$ (precursor II ) and $905^{\circ}C$(precursor III) for 20 min. Tl-1223 phase content, grain size and J\ulcorner in the tapes appeared to increase in an order of precursors I, II and III Compared to tapes prepared using an unreacted precursor, the tapes prewar ed using precursors II and III revealed reduced pore and impurity densities and an enhanced texture. Also characteristic of inter -granular contacts and fraction of strong-links were improved. The improved properties are attributed to enhanced densification resulting from using the reacted precursors.s.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.1065-1068
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• 2008

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.127-134
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• 2011

We investigate the crystallographic orientation and strain states of the Ni/Ag ohmic contacts on p-type GaN. The Ag film in the Ni/Ag contact was severely agglomerated during high temperature annealing in air ambient. As a results, after annealing for 24 h, the Ni/Ag contact shows non-linear I-V curve and low light reflectance of ~21% at 460 nm wavelength. High-resolution X-ray diffraction results show that the interplanar spacing of Ag (111) planes is almost same to that of bilk Ag after annealing for 24 hrs, indicating that the in-plane tensile strain in the Ag film was fully relaxed due to the Ag agglomeration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.443-443
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• 2012

We fabricated a-IGZO TFT with AZO/Ag/AZO transparent multilayer source/drain contacts by rf magnetron sputtering. Enhanced electrical device performance of a-IGZO TFT with AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer S/D electrodes (W/L = = 400/50 mm) was achieved with a subs-threshold swing of 3.78 V/dec, a minimum off-current of 10-12 A, a threshold voltage of 1.80 V, a field effect mobility of 10.86 cm2/Vs, and an on/off ration of 9x109. It demonstrated the potential application of the AZO/Ag/AZO film as a promising S/D contact material for the fabrication of the high performance TFTs.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.132-135
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• 2015

Bonding force and stiffness in amine-linked single-molecule junctions for Ag electrodes were measured using a home-built conducting atomic force microscope under ambient conditions at room temperature. For comparison, Au electrodes were used to measure the rupture force and stiffness of the molecular junctions. The traces of the force along with the conductance showed a characteristic saw-tooth pattern owing to the breaking of the metal atomic contacts or the metal-molecule- metal junctions. We found the rupture force and stiffness for Ag are smaller than those for Au electrodes. Furthermore, we observed that the force required to break the amine-Ag bond in the conjugated molecule, 1,4-benzenediamine, is smaller than in 1,4-butanediamine which is fully saturated. These results consist with the previous theoretical calculations for the binding energies of the nitrogen bonded to Ag or Au atoms.