• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.346.2-346.2
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• 2016

The rear side contact recombination in the crystalline silicon solar cell could be reduced by back surface field. We formed polycrystalline silicon as a back surface field through crystallization of amorphous silicon. A thin silicon oxide applied to the passivation layer. We used quasi-steady-state photoconductance measurement to analyze electrical properties with various annealing condition. And, blister formed on surface of wafer during the annealing process. We observed the blister after varied annealing process with wafer of various surface. Shape and density of blister is influenced by various annealing temperature and process time. As the annealing temperature became higher, the average diameter of blister is decreased and total number of blister is increased. The sample with the $600^{\circ}C$ annealing temperature and 1 min annealing time exhibited the highest implied open circuit voltage and lifetime. We predicted that the various shape and density of blister affects the lifetime and implied open circuit voltage.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.52 no.10
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• pp.447-450
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• 2003

This paper presents a process optimization of antireflection (AR) coating on crystalline Si solar cells. Theoretical and experimental investigations were performed on a double-layer AR (DLAR) coating of MgF$_2$/CeO$_2$. We investigated CeO$_2$ films as an AR layer because they have a proper refractive index of 2.46 and demonstrate the same lattice constant as Si substrate. RF sputter grown CeO$_2$ film showed strong dependence on a deposition temperature. The CeO$_2$ deposited at 40$0^{\circ}C$ exhibited a strong (111) preferred orientation and the lowest surface roughness of 6.87 $\AA$. Refractive index of MgF$_2$ film was measured as 1.386 for the most of growth temperature. An optimized DLAR coating showed a reflectance as low as 2.04% in the wavelengths ranged from 0.4${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ to 1.1${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. We achieved the efficiencies of solar cells greater than 15% with 3.12% improvement with DLAR coatings. Further details on MgF$_2$, CeO$_2$ films, and cell fabrication parameters are presented in this paper.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.593-597
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• 2015

Ni ink for electrohydrodynamic (EHD) continuous jet printing has been developed by using Ni nanoparticles mixed with conhesiveness provider. EHD continuous jet printing was used in order to realize $20{\mu}m$ pattern width. Ink stability was investigated by using Turbi-scan which monitors agglomeration and precipitation of nanoparticles in the ink for three days. The Turbi-scan results showed that the formulated Ni ink had been stable for 3 days without any indication of precipitation across the entire ink. Antireflection coating (ARC) layer in crystalline solar cell wafers was removed by laser ablation technique leading to the formation of 84 grooves where the Ni ink was printed by EHD continuous jet printing. The printability and microstructure of EHD-jet-printed Ni lines were investigated by using optical and electron microscopes. 84 Ni lines with the width less than $20{\mu}m$ were successfully printed by one-time printing without any misalignment and fill the laser-ablated ARC grooves.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.295-295
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• 2016

Recently, TCO films with low carrier concentration, high mobility and high work function are proposed beneficial as front electrode in HIT solar cell due to free-carrier absorption in NIR wavelength region and low Schottky barrier height in the front TCO/a-Si:H(p) interface. We report high transmittance and work function zirconium-doped indium tin oxide (ITO:Zr) films with various plasma (Ar/O2 and Ar) conditions. The role of (Ar/O2) plasma was to enhance the work function of the ITO:Zr films whereas the pure Ar plasma based ITO:Zr showed good electrical properties. The RF magnetron sputtered ITO:Zr films with low resistivity and high transmittance were employed as front electrode in HIT solar cells, yield the best performance of 18.15% with an open-circuit voltage of 710 eV and current density of 34.63 mA/cm2. The high work function ITO:Zr films can be used to modify the front barrier height of HIT solar cell.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2005

High-efficiency silicon solar cells have potential applications on mobile electronics and electrical vehicles. The fabrication processes of the high efficiency cells necessitate com placated fabrication precesses and expensive materials. Ti/Pd/Ag metal contact has been used only for limited area In spite of good stability and low contact resistance because of Its expensive material cost and precesses. Screen printed contact formed by Ag paste causes a low fill factor and a high shading loss of commercial solar cells because of high contact resistance and a low aspect ratio. Low cost Ni/Cu metal contact has been formed by using a low cost electroless and electroplating. Nickel silicide formation at the interface enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance resulting In an energy conversion efficiency of $20.2\%\;on\;0.50{\Omega}cm$ FZ wafer. Tapered contact structure has been applied to large area solar cells with $6.7\times6.7cm^2$ in order to reduce power losses by the front contact The tapered front metal contact Is easily formed by the electroplating technique producing $45cm^2$ solar cells with an efficiency of $21.4\%$ on $21.4\%\;on\;2{\Omega}cm$ FZ wafer.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2004

Zinc sulfide is a semiconductor with wide band gap and high refractive index and hence promising material to be used as ARC on commercial silicon solar cells. Uniform deposition of zinc sulfide (ZnS) by using chemical bath deposition (CBD) method over a large area of silicon surface is an emerging field of research because ZnS film can be used as a low cost antireflection coating (ARC). The main problem of the CBD bath process is the huge amount of precipitation that occurs during heterogeneous reaction leading to hamper the rate of deposition as well as uniformity and chemical stoichiometry of deposited film. Molar concentration of thiorea plays an important role in varying the percentage of reflectance and refractive index of as-deposited CBD ZnS film. Desirable rate of film deposition (19.6 ${\AA}$ / min), film uniformity (Std. dev. < 1.8), high value of refractive index (2.35), low reflectance (0.655) have been achieved with proper optimization of ZnS bath. Decrease in refractive index of CBD ZnS film due to high temperature treatment in air ambiance has been pointed out in this paper. Solar cells of conversion efficiency 13.8 ％ have been successfully achieved with a large area (103 mm ${\times}$ 103 mm) mono-crystalline silicon wafers by using CBD ZnS antireflection coating in this modified approach.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.62-66
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• 2004

This paper investigated the characteristics of a newly developed high density hollow cathode plasma (HCP) system and its application for the etching of silicon wafers. We used SF$_{6}$ and $O_2$ gases in the HCP dry etch process. Silicon etch rate of $0.5\mu\textrm{m}$/min was achieved with $SF_6$$O_2$plasma conditions having a total gas pressure of 50mTorr, and RF power of 100 W. This paper presents surface etching characteristics on a crystalline silicon wafer and large area cast type multicrystlline silicon wafer. The results of this experiment can be used for various display systems such as thin film growth and etching for TFT-LCDs, emitter tip formations for FEDs, and bright plasma discharge for PDP applications.s.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.472.2-472.2
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• 2014

현재 결정질 실리콘 태양전지의 전 후면 전극의 형성은 스크린 프린팅 방법이 주를 이루고 있다. 스크린 프린팅 방법은 쉽고 빠르게 인쇄가 가능한 반면 단가가 높고 금속 페이스트에 첨가된 여러 혼합물에 의해서 전극과 기판 사이의 저항이 크다는 단점이 있다. 본 논문에서는 도금을 이용하여 태양전지의 전극을 형성한 후 태양전지의 전기적 특성을 비교하였다. 또한 단일반사방지막($SiN_x$) 증착 후 도금을 이용한 전극 형성 시 반사방지막의 pin-hole에 의해 전극 이외의 표면에 도금이 되는 ghost plating 현상이 발생하게 되는데, 이를 방지하기 위해 thermal oxidation을 이용하여 SiO2/SiNx 이중반사 방지막을 증착함으로써 ghost plating을 최소화 시켰다. Ni을 이용하여 전극과 기판 사이의 저항을 낮추었으며, 주요 전극은 Cu 도금을 사용함으로써 단가를 낮추었으며 마지막으로 Cu전극의 산화를 방지하기 위해 Ag을 이용하여 얇게 도금하였다. 실험에 사용된 Si 웨이퍼 특성은 p-형, $156{\times}156mm2$, $200{\mu}m$, $0.5{\sim}3.0{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ 이다. 웨이퍼는 표면조직화, p-n접합 형성, 반사방지막 코팅을 하였으며 스크린 프린팅 방법을 이용해 후면 전극을 인쇄하고 열처리 과정을 통해 전극을 형성하였다. 이 후 전면에 레이저를 이용해 전극 패턴을 형성한 후 도금을 실행하여 태양전지를 완성하였다. 완성된 태양전지는 솔라 시뮬레이터, QE 및 TLM패턴을 이용하여 전기적 특성을 분석하였으며, SEM과 linescan, 광학현미경 등을 이용하여 전극을 분석하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.493-493
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• 2014

The manufacturing cost of thin-film photovoltics can potentially be lowered by minimizing the amount of a semiconductor material used to fabricate devices. Thin-film solar cells are typically only a few micrometers thick, whereas crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer solar cells are $180{\sim}300\mu}m$ thick. As such, thin-film layers do not fully absorb incident light and their energy conversion efficiency is lower compared with that of c-Si wafer solar cells. Therefore, effective light trapping is required to realize commercially viable thin-film cells, particularly for indirect-band-gap semiconductors such as c-Si. An emerging method for light trapping in thin film solar cells is the use of metallic nanostructures that support surface plasmons. Plasmon-enhanced light absorption is shown to increase the cell photocurrent in many types of solar cells, specifically, in c-Si thin-film solar cells and in poly-Si thin film solar cell. By proper engineering of these structures, light can be concentrated and coupled into a thin semiconductor layer to increase light absorption. In many cases, silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NP) are formed either on the front surface or on the rear surface on the cells. In case of poly-Si thin film solar cells, Ag NPs are formed on the rear surface of the cells due to longer wavelengths are not perfectly absorbed in the active layer on the first path. In our cells, shorter wavelengths typically 300~500 nm are also not effectively absorbed. For this reason, a new concept of plasmonic nanostructure which is NPs formed both the front - and the rear - surface is worth testing. In this simulation Al NPs were located onto glass because Al has much lower parasitic absorption than other metal NPs. In case of Ag NP, it features parasitic absorption in the optical frequency range. On the other hand, Al NP, which is non-resonant metal NP, is characterized with a higher density of conduction electrons, resulting in highly negative dielectric permittivity. It makes them more suitable for the forward scattering configuration. In addition to this, Ag NP is located on the rear surface of the cell. Ag NPs showed good performance enhancement when they are located on the rear surface of our cells. In this simulation, Al NPs are located on glass and Ag NP is located on the rear Si surface. The structure for the simulation is shown in figure 1. Figure 2 shows FDTD-simulated absorption graphs of the proposed and reference structures. In the simulation, the front of the cell has Al NPs with 70 nm radius and 12.5% coverage; and the rear of the cell has Ag NPs with 157 nm in radius and 41.5% coverage. Such a structure shows better light absorption in 300~550 nm than that of the reference cell without any NPs and the structure with Ag NP on rear only. Therefore, it can be expected that enhanced light absorption of the structure with Al NP on front at 300~550 nm can contribute to the photocurrent enhancement.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.07c
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• pp.1598-1600
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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 vanes with $T_f$.