• Solar Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 1997

Because grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon act as potential barriers and recombination centers for the photo-generated charge carriers, these defects degrade conversion effiency of solar cell. To reduce these effects of grain boundaries, we investigated various influencing factors such as thermal treatment, various grid pattern, selective wet etching for grain boundaries, buried contact metallization along grain boundaries, grid on metallic thin film. Pretreatment above $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ atmosphere, gettering by $POCl_3$ and Al treatment for back surface field contributed to obtain a high quality poly-Si. To prevent carrier losses at the grain boundaries, we carried out surface treatment using Schimmel etchant. This etchant delineated grain boundaries of $10{\mu}m$ depth as well as surface texturing effect. A metal AI diffusion into grain boundaries on rear side reduced back surface recombination effects at grain boundaries. A combination of fine grid with finger spacing of 0.4mm and buried electrode along grain boundaries improved short circuit current density of solar cell. A ultra-thin Chromium layer of 20nm with transmittance of 80% reduced series resistance. This paper focused on the grain boundary effect for terrestrial applications of solar cells with low cost, large area, and high efficiency.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.348-348
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• 2011

Carbon nanotube (CNT) field effect transistors and sensors use CNT as a current channel, of which the resistance varies with the gate voltage or upon molecule adsorption. Since the performance of CNT devices depends very much on the CNT/metal contact resistance, the CNT/electrode contact must be stable and the contact resistance must be small. Depending on the geometry of CNT/electrode contact, it can be categorized into the end-contact, embedded-contact (top-contact), and side-contact (bottom-contact). Because of difficulties in the sample preparation, the end-contact CNT device is seldom practiced. The embedded-contact in which CNT is embedded inside the electrode is desirable due to its rigidness and the low contact resistance. Fabrication of this structure is complicated, however, because each CNT has to be located under a high-resolution microscope and then the electrode is patterned by electron beam lithography. The side-contact is done by depositing CNT electrophoretically or by precipitating on the patterned electrode. Although this contact is fragile and the contact resistance is relatively high, the side-contact by far has been widely practiced because of its simple fabrication process. Here we introduce a simple method to embed CNT inside the electrode while taking advantage of the bottom-contact process. The idea is to utilize a eutectic material as an electrode, which melts at low temperature so that CNT is not damaged while annealing to melt the electrode to embed CNT. The lowering of CNT/Au contact resistance upon annealing at mild temperature has been reported, but the electrode in these studies did not melt and CNT laid on the surface of electrode even after annealing. In our experiment, we used a eutectic Au/Al film that melts at 250$^{\circ}C$. After depositing CNT on the electrode made of an Au/Al thin film, we annealed the sample at 250$^{\circ}C$ in air to induce eutectic melting. As a result, Au-Al alloy grains formed, under which the CNT was embedded to produce a rigid and low resistance contact. The embedded CNT contact was as strong as to tolerate the ultrasonic agitation for 90 s and the current-voltage measurement indicated that the contact resistance was lowered by a factor of 4. By performing standard fabrication process on this CNT-deposited substrate to add another pair of electrodes bridged by CNT in perpendicular direction, we could fabricate a CNT cross junction. Finally, we could conclude that the eutectic alloy electrode is valid for CNT sensors by examine the detection of Au ion which is spontaneously reduced to CNT surface. The device sustatined strong washing process and maintained its detection ability.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.169-169
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• 2008

To keep pace with scaling trends of CMOS technologies, high-k metal oxides are to be introduced. Due to their high permittivity, high-k materials can achieve the required capacitance with stacks of higher physical thickness to reduce the leakage current through the scaled gate oxide, which make it become much more promising materials to instead of $SiO_2$. As further studying on high-k, an understanding of the relation between the etch characteristics of high-k dielectric materials and plasma properties is required for the low damaged removal process to match standard processing procedure. There are some reports on the dry etching of different high-k materials in ICP and ECR plasma with various plasma parameters, such as different gas combinations ($Cl_2$, $Cl_2/BCl_3$, $Cl_2$/Ar, $SF_6$/Ar, and $CH_4/H_2$/Ar etc). Understanding of the complex behavior of particles at surfaces requires detailed knowledge of both macroscopic and microscopic processes that take place; also certain processes depend critically on temperature and gas pressure. The choice of $BCl_3$ as the chemically active gas results from the fact that it is widely used for the etching o the materials covered by the native oxides due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of $BCl_xO_y$ compounds. In this study, the surface reactions and the etch rate of $Al_2O_3$ films in $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma were investigated in an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) reactor in terms of the gas mixing ratio, RF power, DC bias and chamber pressure. The variations of relative volume densities for the particles were measured with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface imagination was measured by AFM and SEM. The chemical states of film was investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which confirmed the existence of nonvolatile etch byproducts.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.452-460
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• 2007

Ultra-low loss ZERODUR and fused silica mirrors were manufactured and their light scattering characteristics were investigated. For this purpose, ZERODUR and fused silica substrates were super-polished by the bowl feed method. The surface roughness were 0.292 ${\AA}$ and 0.326 ${\AA}$ in rms for ZERODUR and fused silica, respectively. To obtain the high reflectivity, 22 thin film layers of $SiO_2$ and $Ta_2O_5$ were deposited by Ion Beam Sputtering. The measured light scattering of ZERODUR and fused silica mirror were 30.9 ppm and 4.6 ppm, respectively. This shows that the substrate surface roughness is not the only parameter which determines the light scattering of the mirror. In order to investigate the mechanism for additional light scattering of the ZERODUR mirror, the surface roughness of the mirror was measured by AFM and was found to be 2.3 times higher than that of the fused silica mirror. It is believed that there is some mismatch at the interface between the substrate and the first thin film layer which leads to the increased mirror surface roughness. To clarify this, the contact angle measurements were performed by SEO 300A, based on the Giriflaco-Good-Fowkes-Young method. The fused silica substrates with 0.46 ${\AA}$ in its physical surface roughness shows lower contact angle than that of the ZERODUR substrate with 0.31 ${\AA}$. This indicates that the thin film surface roughness is determined by not only its surface roughness but also the surface energy of the substrate, which depends on the chemical composition or crystalline orientation of the materials. The surface energy of each substrate was calculated from a contact angle measurement, and it shows that the higher the surface energy of the substrate, the better the surface roughness of the thin film.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.97-102
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• 2006

Anodic alumina with self-organized and ordered nano hole arrays can be a good candidate of an irradiation mask to modify the properties of nano-scale region. In order to try using porous anodic alumina as a mask for ion-beam patterning, ion beam transmittance of anodic alumina was tested. 4 Um thick self-standing AAO templates anodized from Al bulk foil with two different aspect ratio, 200:1 and 100:1, were aligned about incident ion beam with finely controllable goniometer. At the best alignment, the transmittance of the AAO with aspect ratio of 200:1 and 100:1 were $10^{-8}\;and\;10^{-4}$, respectively. However transmittance of the thin film AAO with low aspect ratio, 5:1, were remarkably improved to 0.67. The ion beam transmittance of self-standing porous alumina with a thickness larger than $4{\mu}m$ is extremely low owing to high aspect ratio of nano hole and charging effect, even at a precise beam alignment to the direction of nano hole. $SiO_2$ nano dot array was formed by ion irradiation into thin film AAO on $SiO_2$ film. This was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy that the $SiO_2$ nano dot array is similar to AAO hole array.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.78-85
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• 2001

The growth of carbon nanotubes(CNTs) in anodic aluminum oxide(AAO) template and their application to a field emitter are described. AAO templates were fabricated by anodizing bulk aluminum and sputtered thin Al film on Nb-coated Si wafers. After Co catalyst had been electrochemically deposited into the bottom of the pores in AAO template, CNTs were grown by pyrolyzing $C_2H_2$. Depending on the reaction conditions, CNTs grew up to or over the top of the pores in AAO template with different structures. The morphology and structure of CNTs were observed with a scanning electron microscope and a transmission electron microscope. The diameter of CNTs strongly depended on the size of the pores in AAO template and the growing conditions. The electron field emission measurement of the samples resulted in the turn-on field of 1.9-2.2 $V/{\mu}m$ and the field enhancement factor of 2450-5200. The observation of high field enhancement factors is explained in terms of low field screening effect.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.16-22
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• 2008

A novel class of conjugated dendritic molecules bearing N-hexyl-substituted carbazoles as peripheral groups and various conjugative aromatic cores was synthesized through Heck coupling and the Horner-Emmons reaction. A multilayered structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS (30 nm)/emitting material (50 nm)/BCP (10 nm)/$Alq_3$ (10 nm)/LiF (1 nm)/Al (100 nm) was employed to evaluate the synthesized dendritic materials. The electroluminescence spectrum of the multilayered device made of 3Cz predominantly exhibited blue emissions. Similar emissions were observed in the PL spectra of it's the device's thin film. The multilayered devices made of 3Cz, 3BCz, and 4BCz showed luminance values of 6,250 cd $m^{-2}$ at 24 V, 3,000 cd $m^{-2}$ at 25 V, and 1,970 cd $m^{-2}$ at 36 V, respectively. The smallest molecule, 3Cz, which bore three carbazole peripheral groups, exhibited a blue-like emission with CIE 1931 chromaticity coordinates of x = 0.17 and y = 0.21.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.55.2-55.2
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• 2010

최근 태양전지에 대한 연구가 본격적으로 진행 중인 가운데 Local back contact 태양전지에 대한 연구가 새로운 이슈로 떠오르고 있다. LBC 구조의 태양전지는 후면 passivation에 대한 최적화 공정이 가장 중요하다. 후면 passivation으로 사용되는 물질로는 $SiO_2$, SiNx, $Al_2O_3$ 등의 산화막이 대표적이다. 본 연구에서는 LBC 구조 태양전지의 후면 passivation 박막으로 사용되는 $SiO_2$ 산화막의 공정가변에 따른 박막의 특성을 비교 분석하였다. $SiO_2$ 성장은 RTP를 사용하였다. 성장 온도 $850^{\circ}C$의 온도에서 진행하였으며, 4L/min의 $O_2$분위기에서 진행하였다. 공정 시간 5분 일 때 12.5nm, 15분 일 때 21.7nm의 두께의 박막을 성장 시킬 수 있었다. Carrier lifetime 확인 결과 박막의 두께가 얇을수록 lifetime이 향상함을 확인 할 수 있었고, C-V 측정을 통한 charge 비교를 통해 두께가 얇은 박막 일수록 더 적은 positive charge를 갖고있는 것을 확인 할 수 있었으며 이를 통해 passivation 효과가 우수함을 확인 할 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.186-186
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• 2012

This report investigates a new synthetic route and the size-dependent optical and electrical properties of PbS nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) in diameters ranging between 1.5 and 6 nm. Particularly we synthesize ultra-small sized PbS NQDs having extreme quantum confinement with 1.5~2.9 nm in diameter (2.58~1.5 eV in first exciton energy) for the first time by adjusting growth temperature and growth time. In this region, the Stokes shift increases as decreasing size, which is testimony to the highly quantum confinement effect of ultra-small sized PbS NQDs. To find out the electrical properties, we fabricate self-assembled films of PbS NQDs using layer by layer (LBL) spin-coating method and replacing the original ligands with oleic acid to short ligands with 1, 2-ethandithiol (EDT) in the course. The use of capping ligands (EDT) allows us to achieve effective electrical transport in the arrays of solution processed PbS NQDs. These high-quality films apply to Schottky solar cell made in an glass/ITO/PbS/LiF/Al structure and thin-film transistor varying the PbS NQDs diameter 1.5~6 nm. We achieve the highest open-circuit voltage (＜0.6 V) in Schottky solar cell ever using PbS NQDs with first exciton energy 2.58 eV.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.161.1-161.1
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• 2016

박막 태양전지의 광 산란을 위한 텍스쳐 된 표면은 반사 손실을 감소시키기 위한 것이다. 그러나, 투명한 전극(TCO)의 텍스쳐 된 표면은 빛의 가용성을 제한하고, 장파장 영역에서 haze의 수치를 감소시키며, 전반사의 증가는 박막 태양전지의 Jsc를 감소시킨다. 본 논문에서는 높은 빛의 가용성을 위하여 HF+HCl 혼합용액을 이용하여 표면의 질을 향상시키기 위한 해결책을 제시했다. 같은 HF+HCl 혼합용액을 사용하여, 540 nm의 파장에서 약 85 %의 높은 haze 수치를 달성했으며, ZnO:Al 막의 증착 후에 식각된 유리 기판과 함께 비교했을 때, 2.3%의 haze 수치의 감소를 얻었다. 또, 깊은 습식 식각에 의하여 Haze 수치를 증가시키기 위한 메커니즘 간단히 설명했다. 텍스쳐 된 유리 기판의 haze 수치의 측면에서 광학 이득은 일반적인 Asahi FTO 유리(${\lambda}=540nm$의 13.5%)에 비해 상당히 높다. 이러한 높은 haze 수치의 AZO 박막은 박막 태양전지의 Jsc를 개선하는데 이용할 수 있다.