• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.365-372
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• 2017

Finger electrodes on a crystalline silicon solar cell are required to be constructed as narrow and thick as possible in order to minimize shading losses and electrical resistance. The most common means to construct high-aspect ratio finger electrodes has been screen-printing, but it has difficulty achieving fine finger electrodes because the as-printed finger width is generally wider by 1.3-2.2 times the screen opening width. Consequently, it requires an extremely small screen opening (below $30{\mu}m$) in order to achieve a finger width below $40{\mu}m$. However, the use of such a small screen opening could result in various problems, such as high printing pressure, defective transport of silver paste, and high electrical resistance due to unfavorable mesh marks left on the finger electrodes. In this study, dispensing printing with a screw pump is introduced as an alternative to conventional screen-printing and its unique traits in the front side metallization of crystalline silicon solar cells is discussed.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.219-223
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• 2009

$TiO_2$ doped with $Er^{3+\;and\;Yb^{3+}$ was used for fabricating a scattering layer and a nano-crystalline $TiO_2$ electrode layer to be used in dye-sensitized solar cells. The material was prepared using a new sol-gel combustion hybrid method with acetylene black as fuel. The $Er^{3+}$-$Yb^{3+}$ co-doped titanium oxide powder synthesized at 700oC had embossed structure morphology with a size between 27 to 54 nm that agglomerated to produce micron size particles, as observed by the scanning electron micrographs. The XRD patterns showed that the $Er^{3+}$-$Yb^{3+}$ co-doped titanium oxide had an amorphous structure, while using the same method without doping $Er^{3+}\;or\;Yb^{3+},\;TiO_2$ was obtained in the crystallite form with thea dominance of rutile phase. Fabricating a bilayer structure consisting of nano-crystalline $TiO_2$ and the synthesized $Er^{3+}$-$Yb^{3+}$ co-doped titanium oxide showed better scattering property, with an overall increase of 15.6% in efficiency of the solar cell with respect to a single nano-crystalline $TiO_2$ layer.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.56-59
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• 2011

The process conditions for high efficiency industrial crystalline Si solar cells with selective emitter were optimized. In the screen printed solar cells, the sheet resistance must be 50-60V/sq. because of metal contact resistance. But the low sheet resistance causes the increase of the recombination and blue response at the short wavelength. Therefore, the screen printed solar cells with homogeneous emitter have limitations of efficiency, and this means that the selective emitter must be used to improve cell efficiency. This work demonstrates the feasibility of a commercially available selective emitter process, based on screen printing and conventional diffusion process. Now, we improved cell efficiency from 18.29% to18.45% by transition of heavy emitter pattern and shallow emitter doping condition.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.697-702
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• 2019

In this study, using a wet chemical process, we evaluate the effectiveness of different solution concentrations in removing layers from a solar cell, which is necessary for recovery of high-purity silicon. A 4-step wet etching process is applied to a 6-inch back surface field(BSF) solar cell. The metal electrode is removed in the first and second steps of the process, and the anti-reflection coating(ARC) is removed in the third step. In the fourth step, high purity silicon is recovered by simultaneously removing the emitter and the BSF layer from the solar cell. It is confirmed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy(ICP-MS) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy(SIMS) analyses that the effectiveness of layer removal increases with increasing chemical concentrations. The purity of silicon recovered through the process, using the optimal concentration for each process, is analyzed using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy(ICP-AES). In addition, the silicon wafer is recovered through optimum etching conditions for silicon recovery, and the solar cell is remanufactured using this recovered silicon wafer. The efficiency of the remanufactured solar cell is very similar to that of a commercial wafer-based solar cell, and sufficient for use in the PV industry.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.147-151
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• 2014

A boron doping process using a boron tri-bromide ($BBr_3$) as a boron source was applied to form a $p^+$ emitter layer on an n-type mono-crystalline CZ substrate. Nitrogen ($N_2$) gas as an additive of the diffusion process was varied in order to study the variations in sheet resistance and the uniformity of doped layer. The flow rate of $N_2$ gas flow was changed in the range 3 slm~10 slm. The sheet resistance uniformity however was found to be variable with the variation of the $N_2$ flow rate. The optimal flow rate for $N_2$ gas was found to be 4 slm, resulting in a sheet resistance value of $50{\Omega}/sq$ and having a uniformity of less than 10%. The process temperature was also varied in order to study its influence on the sheet resistance and minority carrier lifetimes. A higher lifetime value of $1727.72{\mu}s$ was achieved for the emitter having $51.74{\Omega}/sq$ sheet resistances. The thickness of the boron rich layer (BRL) was found to increase with the increase in the process temperature and a decrease in the sheet resistance was observed with the increase in the process temperature. Furthermore, a passivated emitter solar cell (PESC) type solar cell structure comprised of a boron doped emitter and phosphorus doped back surface field (BSF) having Ni/Cu contacts yielding 15.32% efficiency is fabricated.

• 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.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.6-16
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• 2024

The efficiency of silicon solar cells is approaching a theoretical limit referred to as 'the state of the art'. Consequently, maintaining efficiency is more productive than pursuing improvements the last room for limiting efficiency. One of the primary considerations in silicon module conservation is the occurrence of failures and degradation. Degradation can be mitigated during the cell manufacturing stage, unlike physical and spontaneous failure. It is mostly because the chemical reaction is triggered by the carrier generation of thermal and light injection, an inherent aspect of the solar cell environment. Therefore, numerous researchers and cell manufacturers are engaged in implementing mitigation strategies based on the physical degradation mechanism.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.230-234
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• 2009

It is significant technique to increase competitiveness that solar cells have a high energy conversion efficiency and cost effectiveness. When making high efficiency crystalline Si solar cells, evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is widely used in order to reduce the electrical resistance of the contact fingers. However, the evaporation process is no applicable to mass production because high vacuum is needed. Furthermore, those metals are too expensive to be applied for terrestrial applications. Ni/Cu/Ag contact system of silicon solar cells offers a relatively inexpensive method of making electrical contact. Ni silicide formation is one of the indispensable techniques for Ni/Cu/Ag contact sytem. Ni was electroless plated on the front grid pattern, After Ni electroless plating, the cells were annealed by RTP(Rapid Thermal Process). Ni silicide(NiSi) has certain advantages over Ti silicide($TiSi_2$), lower temperature anneal, one step anneal, low resistivity, low silicon consumption, low film stress, absence of reaction between the annealing ambient. Ni/Cu/Ag metallization scheme is an important process in the direction of cost reduction for solar cells of high efficiency. In this article we shall report an investigation of rapid thermal silicidation of nickel on silngle crystalline silicon wafers in the annealing range of $350-390^{\circ}C$. The samples annealed at temperatures from 350 to $390^{\circ}C$ have been analyzed by SEM(Scanning Electron Microscopy).

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.25-27
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• 2017

Nanoscale textured black silicon has attracted intensive attention due to its great potential as applications in multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells. It absorbs sunlight over a broad range of wavelengths but introduces large recombination centers, non-uniform doping into cell. In this study, we present a metal-assisted chemical etching technique plus alkaline etching process to fabricate nanoscale pyramid structures with optimized condition. To make the structures, silver nanoparticles-loaded mc-Si wafer was submerged into $H_2O_2/HF$ solution first for nanohole texturing the wafer and textured wafer etched again with KOH solution for making nanoscale pyramid structures. The average reflectivity (350-1050 nm) is about 8.42% with anti-reflection coating.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.140-143
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• 2013

Lowering surface reflectance of silicon wafer by texturization is one of the most important processes to improve the efficiency of silicon solar cells. Generally, the texturing of crystalline silicon was carried out using alkaline solution. The average reflectance of this method was 11% at the wavelength between 400 and 1,000 nm. In this study, the wafers were first texturing by NaOH solution at $80^{\circ}C$ for 35 min. Then the wafers were texturing by $SF_6$ and $O_2$ plasma in RIE (Reactive Ion Etching). The average reflectance of two step texturing was reduced to below 5% at the wavelength between 400 and 1,000 nm.