• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.68-71
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• 2020

In this study, SiNx and Al₂O₃ thin film was manufactured using PECVD deposition process and applied to crystalline silicon solar cells, resulting in 16.7% conversion efficiency. The structural improvement experiment of the rear electrode resulted in a 1.7% improvement in conversion efficiency compared to the reference cell by reducing the recombination rate of minority carriers and increasing the carrier lifetime by forming a passivation layer consisting of SiNx and Al₂O₃ thin films through the PECVD process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.686-686
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• 2013

Crystalline silicon solar cell is a semiconductor device that converts light into electrical energy. Screen printing is commonly used to form the front/back electrodes in silicon solar cell. Screen printing method is convenient but usually shows high resistance and low aspect ratio, which cause the efficiency decrease in crystalline silicon solar cell. Recently the plating method is applied in c-Si solar cell to reduce the resistance and improve the aspect ratio. In this paper, we investigated the effect of additional electroless Ag plating into screen-printed c-Si solar cell and compared their electrical properties. All wafers used in this experiment were textured, doped, and anti-reflection coated. The electrode formation was performed with screen-printing, followed by the firing step. Aften then we carried out electroless Ag plating by changing the plating time in the range of 20 sec~5 min and light intensity. The light I-V curve and optical microscope were measured with the completed solar cell. As a result, the conversion efficiency of solar cells was increased mainly due to the decreased series resistance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.1034-1037
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• 2003

Microcrystalline silicon(c-Si:H) thin-film solar cells are prepared with intrinsic Si-layer by hot wire CVD. The operating parameters of solar cells are strongly affected by the filament temperature ($T_f$) during intrinsic layer. Jsc and efficiency abruptly decreases with elevated $T_f$ to $1400^{\circ}C$. This deterioration of solar cell parameters are resulted from increase of crystalline volume fraction and corresponding defect density at high $T_f$. The heater temperature ($T_h$) are also critical parameter that controls device operations. Solar cells prepared at low $T_h$ ($<200^{\circ}C$) shows a similar operating properties with devices prepared at high $T_f$, i.e. low Jsc, Voc and efficiency. The origins for this result, however, are different with that of inferior device performances at high $T_f$. In addition the phase transition of the silicon films occurs at different silane concentration (SC) by varying filament temperature, by which highest efficiency with SC varies with $T_f$.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.383-387
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• 2009

Multi-crystalline silicon surface etching without grain-boundary delineation is a challenging task for the fabrication of high efficiency solar cell. The use of sodium hydroxide - sodium hypochlorite (NaOH40% + NaOCl 12%) solution for texturing multi-crystalline silicon wafer surface in solar cell fabrication line is reported in this article. in light current-voltage results, the cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:2 exhibited higher short circuit current and open circuit voltage than those of the cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:1 solution. we have obtained 15.19% conversion efficiency in large area(156cm2) multi-Si solar cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:1 solution.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.62-68
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• 2012

The conversion efficiency of solar cells depending on incident angle of light is important for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) applications. The quantum efficiency is the ratio of the number of charge carriers collected by the solar cell to the number of photons of a given energy shining on the solar cell. The analysis of angle dependence of quantum efficiencies give more information upon the variation of power output of a solar cell by the incident angle of light. The variations in power output of solar cells with increasing angle of incidence is different for the type of cell structures. In this study we present the results of the quantum efficiency measurement of single-crystalline silicon solar cells and a-Si:H thin-film solar cells with the angle of incidence of light. As a result, as the angle of incidence increases in single-crystalline silicon solar cells, quantum efficiency at all wavelength (300~1,100 nm) of light were reduced. But in case of a-Si:H thin-film solar cells, quantum efficiency was increased or maintained at the angle of incidence from 0 degree to about 40 degrees and dramatically decrease at more than 40 degrees in the range of visible light. This results of quantum efficiency with increasing incident angle were caused by haze and interference effects in thin-film structure. Thus, the structural optimization considering incident angle dependence of solar cells is expected to benefit BIPV.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.65-69
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• 2017

This paper presents a Technology-CAD (TCAD) simulation of the characteristics of crystalline Si pillar array solar cells. The junction depth and the surface concentration of the solar cells were optimized to obtain the targeted sheet resistance of the emitter region. The diffusion model was determined by calibrating the emitter doping profile of the microscale silicon pillars. The dimension parameters determining the pillar shape, such as width, height, and spacing were varied within a simulation window from ${\sim}2{\mu}m$ to $5{\mu}m$. The simulation showed that increasing pillar width (or diameter) and spacing resulted in the decrease of current density due to surface area loss, light trapping loss, and high reflectance. Although increasing pillar height might improve the chances of light trapping, the recombination loss due to the increase in the carrier's transfer length canceled out the positive effect to the photo-generation component of the current. The silicon pillars were experimentally formed by photoresist patterning and electroless etching. The laboratory results of a fabricated Si pillar solar cell showed the efficiency and the fill factor to be close to the simulation results.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.754-759
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• 2013

Aluminum oxide($Al_2O_3$) film deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known to supply excellent surface passivation properties on crystalline Si surfaces. Since $Al_2O_3$ has fixed negative charge, it forms effective surface passivation by field effect passivation on the rear side in p-type silicon solar cell. However, $Al_2O_3$ layer formed by ALD process needs very long process time, which is not applicable in mass production of silicon solar cells. In this paper, plasma-assisted ALD(PA-ALD) was applied to form $Al_2O_3$ to reduce the process time. $Al_2O_3$ synthesized by ALD on c-Si (100) wafers contains a very thin interfacial $SiO_2$ layer, which was confirmed by FTIR and TEM. To improve passivation quality of $Al_2O_3$ layer, the deposition temperature was changed in range of $150{\sim}350^{\circ}C$, then the annealing temperature and time were varied. As a result, the silicon wafer with aluminum oxide film formed in $250^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$ and 10 min for the deposition temperature, the annealing temperature and time, respectively, showed the best lifetime of 1.6ms. We also observed blistering with nanometer size during firing of $Al_2O_3$ deposited on p-type silicon.

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

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.72.1-72.1
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• 2010

Thin film a-Si solar cells deposited by PECVD have many advantages compared to the traditional crystalline Si solar cells. They do not require expensive Si wafer, the process temperature is relatively low, possibility of scaling up for mass production, etc. In order to produce thin film solar cells, understanding the relationship between the material characteristics and deposition conditions is important. It has been reported by many groups that the band gap of the a-Si material and the deposition rate has an linear relationship, when RF power is used to control both. However, when the process pressure is changed in order to control the deposition rate and the band gap, a diversion from the well known linear relationship occurs. Here, we explain this diversion by the deposition condition crossing different plasma regions in the Paschen curve with a simple model. This model will become a guide to which condition a-Si thin films must be fabricated in order to get a high quality film.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.227-233
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• 2015

To reduce the cost of solar electricity, the crystalline-silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic industry is moving toward the use of thinner wafers (100 μm to 200 μm) to achieve a high efficiency. In this field, it is imperative to achieve an effective passivation method to reduce the electronic losses at the c-Si interface. In this article, we review the most promising surface passivation schemes that are available for high-efficiency solar cells.