• New & Renewable Energy
• /
• v.2 no.3
• /
• pp.31-36
• /
• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film(a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides(TCO) in order to see the effect of TCO/p-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage VOC than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer(${\mu}c-Si:H$) between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{OC}$ of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{OC}$ of 994mV while keeping fill factor(72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{SC}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{OC}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2006.06a
• /
• pp.158-161
• /
• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film (a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides (TCO) In order to see the effect of TCO/P-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage $V_{oc}$ than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer $({\mu}c-Si:H)$ between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{oc}$, of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{oc}$, of 994mv while keeping fill factor (72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{sc}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{oc}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.192-197
• /
• 2017

Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) is used as an emitter layer in HIT (heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer) solar cells. Its low band gap and low optical properties (low transmittance and high absorption) cause parasitic absorption on the front side of a solar cell that significantly reduces the solar cell blue response. To overcome this, research on CSC (carrier Selective Contacts) is being actively carried out to reduce carrier recombination and improve carrier transportation as a means to approach the theoretical efficiency of silicon solar cells. Among CSC materials, molybdenum oxide ($MoO_x$) is most commonly used for the hole transport layer (HTL) of a solar cell due to its high work function and wide band gap. This paper analyzes the electrical and optical properties of $MoO_x$ thin films for use in the HTL of HIT solar cells. The optical properties of $MoO_x$ show better performance than a-Si:H and ${\mu}c-SiO_x:H$.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.192-195
• /
• 2012

We reported diborane ($B_2H_6$) doped wide bandgap hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (p-type a-SiOx:H) films prepared by using silane ($SiH_4$) hydrogen ($H_2$) and nitrous oxide ($N_2O$) in a radio frequency (RF) plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system. We improved the $E_{opt}$ and conductivity of p-type a-SiOx:H films with various $N_2O$ and $B_2H_6$ ratios and applied those films in regards to the a-Si thin film solar cells. For the single layer p-type a-SiOx:H films, we achieved an optical band gap energy ($E_{opt}$) of 1.91 and 1.99 eV, electrical conductivity of approximately $10^{-7}$ S/cm and activation energy ($E_a$) of 0.57 to 0.52 eV with various $N_2O$ and $B_2H_6$ ratios. We applied those films for the a-Si thin film solar cell and the current-voltage characteristics are as given as: $V_{oc}$ = 853 and 842 mV, $J_{sc}$ = 13.87 and 15.13 $mA/cm^2$. FF = 0.645 and 0.656 and ${\eta}$ = 7.54 and 8.36% with $B_2H_6$ ratios of 0.5 and 1% respectively.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.125-129
• /
• 2019

Recently, carrier-selective contact solar cells have attracted much interests because of its high efficiency with low recombination current density. In this study, we investigated the effect of phosphorus doped amorphous silicon layer's characteristics on the passivation properties of tunnel oxide passivated carrier-selective contact solar cells. We fabricated symmetric structure sample with poly-Si/SiOx/c-Si by deposition of phosphorus doped amorphous silicon layer on the silicon oxide with subsequent annealing and hydrogenation process. We varied deposition temperature, deposition thickness, and annealing conditions, and blistering, lifetime and passivation quality was evaluated. The result showed that blistering can be controlled by deposition temperature, and passivation quality can be improved by controlling annealing conditions. Finally, we achieved blistering-free electron carrier-selective contact with 730mV of i-Voc, and cell-like structure consisted of front boron emitter and rear passivated contact showed 682mV i-Voc.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.362-371
• /
• 1995

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.93-99
• /
• 2011

To guarantee more exact maximum power of solar cell module, it is absolutely required to have performance characteristics of various solar cells. Today, there are many types of solar simulator for large area measurement. But it is very opaque how to select the best one for various solar cell module like crystalline silicon solar cell, high efficiency solar cell, amorphous silicon thin film solar cell, CdTe and CIGS solar cell module. So, in this paper 4 types of photovoltaic module were selected to compare the electrical characteristics by changing light pulse duration time and voltage scan direction. Light pulse duration time was varied from 10msec to 800msec. And two types of voltage scan directions, Voc->Isc and Isc->Voc were selected. From this results, optimum measuring condition was suggested and electrical variation was analysed for each types of solar cell module. The detail description is specified as the following paper.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.25 no.12
• /
• pp.1009-1014
• /
• 2012

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (${\alpha}$-Si:H) layers deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are investigated for use in silicon hetero-junction solar cells employing n-type crystalline silicon (c-Si) substrates. The optical and structural properties of silicon hetero-junction devices have been characterized using spectroscopy ellipsometry and high resolution cross-sectional transmission electron micrograph (HRTEM). In addition, the effective carrier lifetime is measured by the quasi-steady-state photocoductance (QSSPC) method. We have studied on the correlation between the order of ${\alpha}$-Si:H and the passivation quality at the interface of ${\alpha}$-Si:H/c-Si. Base on the result, we have fabricated a silicon hetero-junction solar cell incorporating the ${\alpha}$-Si:H passivation layer with on open circuit voltage ($V_{oc}$) of 637 mV.

• New & Renewable Energy
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.68-73
• /
• 2008

It is very important that constitution of good hetero-junction interface with a high quality amorphous silicon thin films on very cleaned c-Si wafer for making high efficiency hetero-junction solar cells. For achieving the high efficiency solar cells, the inspection and management of c-Si wafer surface conditions are essential subjects. In this experiment, we analyzed the c-Si wafer surface very sensitively using Spectroscopic Ellipsometer for < ${\varepsilon}2$ > and u-PCD for effective carrier life time, so we accomplished < ${\varepsilon}2$ > value 43.02 at 4.25eV by optimizing the cleaning process which is representative of c-Si wafer surface conditions very well. We carried out that the deposition of high quality hydrogenated silicon amorphous thin films by RF-PECVD systems having high density and low crystallinity which are results of effective medium approximation modeling and fitting using spectroscopic ellipsometer. We reached the cell efficiency 12.67% and 14.30% on flat and textured CZ c-Si wafer each under AM1.5G irradiation, adopting the optimized cleaning and deposition conditions that we made. As a result, we confirmed that spectroscopic ellipsometry is very useful analyzing methode for hetero-junction solar cells which need to very thin and high quality multi layer structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2016.02a
• /
• pp.347.1-347.1
• /
• 2016

Screen printing is commonly used to form the electrode for crystalline silicon solar cells. However, it has caused high resistance and low aspect ratio, resulting in decrease of conversion efficiency. Accordingly, Ni/Cu/Ag plating method could be applied for crystalline silicon solar cells to reduce contact resistance. For Ni/Cu/Ag plating, laser ablation process is required to remove anti-reflection layers prior to the plating process, but laser ablation results in surface damage and then decrease of open-circuit voltage and cell efficiency. Another issue with plating process is ghost plating. Ghost plating occurred in the non-metallized region, resulting from pin-hole in anti-reflection layer. In this paper, we investigated the effect of Ni/Cu/Ag plating on the electrical properties, compared to screen printing method. In addition, phosphoric acid layer was spin-coated prior to laser ablation to minimize emitter damage by the laser. Phosphorous elements in phosphoric acid generated selective emitter throughout emitter layer during laser process. Then, KOH treatment was applied to remove surface damage by laser. At this step, amorphous silicon formed by laser ablation was recrystallized during firing process and remaining of amorphous silicon was removed by KOH treatment. As a result, electrical properties as Jsc, FF and efficiency were improved, but Voc was lower than screen printed solar cells because Voc was decreased due to surface damage by laser process. Accordingly, we expect that efficiency of solar cells could be improved by optimization of the process to remove surface damage.