• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.1473-1476
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• 2013

Solution-based deposition of $CuIn_xGa_{1-x}Se_2$ (CIGSe) thin films is well known non-vacuum process for the fabrication of CIGSe solar cells. However, due to the usage of organic chemicals in the preparation of CIG precursor solutions, the crystallization of the polycrystalline CIGSe and the performance of CIGSe thin film solar cells were significantly affected by the carbon residues from the organic chemicals. In this work, we have tried to eliminate the carbon residues in the CIG precursor thin films efficiently by using soft-annealing process. By adjusting soft-annealing temperature, it is possible to control the amount of carbon residues in CIG precursor thin films. The reduction of the carbon residues in CIG precursors by high temperature soft-annealing improves the grain size and morphology of polycrystalline CIGSe thin films, which are also closely related with the electrical properties of CIGSe thin film solar cells.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.123-128
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• 2014

To realize high-performance thin film solar cells, we prepared CIGS by the co-evaporation technique on both sodalime and Corning glass substrates. The structural and efficient properties were investigated by varying the thickness of the Mo:Na layer, where the total thickness of the back contact was fixed at 1${\mu}m$. As a result, when the Mo:Na thickness was 300 nm on soda-lime glass, the measured Na content was 0.28 %, the surface morphology was a plate-like compact structure, and the crystallinity by XRD showed a strong peak of (112) preferential orientation together with relatively intense (220) and (204) peaks as the secondary phases influenced crystal formation. In addition, the substrates on soda-lime glass effected the lowest surface roughness of 2.76 nm and the highest carrier density and short circuit current. Through the optimization of the Mo:Na layer, a solar conversion efficiency of 11.34% was achieved. When using the Corning glass, a rather low conversion efficiency of 9.59% was obtained. To determine the effects of the concentration of sodium and in order to develop a highefficiency solar cells, a very small amount of sodium was added to the soda lime glass substrate.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.138-138
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• 2009

Recently, thin-film solar cells of Cu(In,Ga)$Se_2$(CIGS) have reached a high level of performance, which has resulted in a 19.9%-efficient device. These conventional devices were typically fabricated using chemical bath deposited CdS buffer layer between the CIGS absorber layer and ZnO window layer. However, the short wavelength response of CIGS solar cell is limited by narrow CdS band gap of about 2.42 eV. Taking into consideration the environmental aspect, the toxic Cd element should be replaced by a different material. It is why during last decades many efforts have been provided to achieve high efficiency Cd-free CIGS solar cells. In order to alternate CdS buffer layer, ZnS buffer layer is grown by using chemical bath deposition(CBD) technique. The thickness and chemical composition of ZnS buffer layer can be conveniently by varying the CBD processing parameters. The processing parameters were optimized to match band gap of ZnS films to the solar spectrum and exclude the creation of morphology defects. Optimized ZnS buffer layer showed higher optical transmittance than conventional thick-CdS buffer layer at the short wavelength below ~520 nm. Then, chemically deposited ZnS buffer layer was applied to CIGS solar cell as a alternative for the standard CdS/CIGS device configuration. This CIGS solar cells were characterized by current-voltage and quantum efficiency measurement.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.183-189
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• 2013

$Cu_2ZnSn(S,Se)_4$ material is receiving an increased amount of attention for solar cell applications as an absorber layer because it consists of inexpensive and abundant materials (Zn and Sn) instead of the expensive and rare materials (In and Ga) in $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ solar cells. We were able to achieve a cell conversion efficiency to 4.7% by the selenization of a stacked metal precursor with the Cu/(Zn + Sn)/Mo/glass structure. However, the selenization of the metal precursor results in large voids at the absorber/Mo interface because metals diffuse out through the top CZTSe layer. To avoid the voids at the absorber/Mo interface, binary selenide compounds of ZnSe and $SnSe_2$ were employed as a precursor instead of Zn and Sn metals. It was found that the precursor with Cu/$SnSe_2$/ZnSe stack provided a uniform film with larger grains compared to that with $Cu_2Se/SnSe_2$/ZnSe stack. Also, voids were not observed at the $Cu_2ZnSnSe_4$/Mo interface. A severe loss of Sn was observed after a high-temperature annealing process, suggesting that selenization in this case should be performed in a closed system with a uniform temperature in a $SnSe_2$ environment. However, in the experiments, Cu top-layer stack had more of an effect on reducing Sn loss compared to $Cu_2Se$ top-layer stack.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.304-308
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• 2013

For the application to the window layer of $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$(CIGS) solar cell, zinc oxide(ZnO) thin film was deposited at various temperatures by in-line pulsed DC sputtering. From the structural, optical, and electrical investigation and analysis, it was possible to obtain the lower thickness, the lower resistivity, and the higher transmittance at a higher process temperature. The energy band gap of ZnO was calculated using the transmittance data and was analyzed in terms of the dependency on temperature. From the X-ray diffraction(XRD) results, it was possible to conclude that a dominant peak was found about $34.2{\sim}34.6^{\circ}$(111) and crystallinity was obtained at a temperature above $150^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05c
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• pp.63-66
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• 2002

Bi-layer Mo films were deposited on sodalime glass substrates using DC magnetron sputtering. As the gas pressure and power density, the resistivity varied from $1.5{\times}10^{-5}$ to $4.97{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. Furthermore, stress direction yielded compressive-to-tensile transition stress curves. The microstructure of the compressive stress films which had poor adhesion consists of tightly packed columns, but of the tensile-stressed films had less dense structure. Under all gas pressure conditions, Mo films exhibited distinctly increasing optical reflection with decreasing gas pressure. The expansion of (110) peak width with the gas pressure meant the worse crystalline growth. Also, The highest efficiency was 15.2% on 0.2 $cm^2$. The fill factor, open circuit voltage and short circuit current were 63 %, 570 m V and 42.6 $mA/cm^2$ respectively.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.54-60
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• 2015

ZnSnO thin films were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) process using diethyl zinc ($Zn(C_2H_5)_2$) and tetrakis (dimethylamino) tin ($Sn(C_2H_6N)_4$) as metal precursors and water vapor as a reactant. ALD process has several advantages over other deposition methods such as precise thickness control, good conformality, and good uniformity for large area. The composition of ZnSnO thin films was controlled by varying the ratio of ZnO and $SnO_2$ ALD cycles. The ALD ZnSnO film was an amorphous state. The band gap of ZnSnO thin films increased as the Sn content increased. The CIGS solar cell using ZnSnO buffer layer showed about 18% energy conversion efficiency. With such a high efficiency with the ALD ZnSnO buffer and no light soaking effect, AlD ZnSnO buffer mighty be a good candidate to replace Zn(S,O) buffer in CIGSsolar cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.160-162
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• 2009

We have prepared and characterized particle based CIGS thin films using a thermal evaporator. As the copper rate, selenium rate changed, CIGS particles were obtained at $240^{\circ}C$ for 6 hours from the reaction of $CuCl_2$, $InCl_3$, $GaCl_3$ and Se powder in solvent. The CIGS thin films were deposited on a sodalime glass. The CIGS thin film were identified to have a typical chalcopyrite tetragonal structure by using UV/Vis-spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction(XRD), Auger Electron Spectroscopy(AES), Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM).

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.149-151
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• 2006

Cu계 $I-III-VI_2$화합물은 직접천이형 반도체로 광흡수계수가 매우 높아 박막형 태양전지 제조에 매우 유리하다. 또한 화학적으로 안정하며 Ga, Al 등을 첨가하면 에너지 금지대폭을 조절할 수 있어 Wide Bandgap 태양전지 및 탠덤구조 태양전지를 제조하기에도 용이하다 $CulnSe_2(CIS)$ 물질에서 In을 20-30% 정도 치환한 $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2(CIGS)$ 태양전지의 경우 19.5%의 세계 최고 효율을 보고하고 있으며 이는 다결정 실리콘 태양전지의 효율과 비슷한 수준이다. 본 연구에서는 동시 진공증발법을 이용하여 증착한 CIGS 박막을 이용하여 태양전지를 제조하였다. 공정의 재현성 및 결정립계가 큰 광흡수층 제조를 위하여 실시간 기판온도 모니터링 시스템을 도입하였으며 버퍼충으로는 용액성장한 CdS 박막을 사용하였다. SLG/MO/CIGS(CGS)/CdS/ZnO/Al 구조의 태양전지를 제조하여 면적 $0.5cm^2$에서 각각 17.5%의 효율을 얻었다.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.35.1-35.1
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• 2011

New photovoltaic (PV) materials and manufacturing approaches are needed for meeting the demand for lower-cost solar cells. The prototypal thin-film photovoltaic absorbers (CdTe and $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$) can achieve solar conversion efficiencies of up to 20% and are now commercially available, but the presence of toxic (Cd,Se) and expensive elemental components (In, Te) is a real issue as the demand for photovoltaics rapidly increases. To overcome these limitations, there has been substantial interest in developing viable alternative materials, such as $Cu_2ZnSnS_4$ (CZTS) is an emerging solar absorber that is structurally similar to CIGS, but contains only earth abundant, non-toxic elements and has a near optimal direct band gap energy of 1.4~1.6 ev and a large absorption coefficient of ${\sim}10^4\;cm^{-1}$. The CZTS absorber layers are grown and investigated by various fabrication methods, such as thermal evaporation, e-beam evaporation with a post sulfurization, sputtering, non-vacuum sol-gel, pulsed laser, spray-pyrolysis method and electrodeposition technique. In the present work, we report an alternative method for large area deposition of CZTS thin films that is potentially high throughput and inexpensive when used to produce monolithically integrated solar panel modules. Specifically, we have developed an aqueous chemical approach based on chemical bath deposition (CBD) with a subsequent sulfurization heat treatment. Samples produced by our method were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, absorbance and photoluminescence. The results show that this inexpensive and relatively benign process produces thin films of CZTS exhibiting uniform composition, kesterite crystal structure, and good optical properties. A preliminary solar cell device was fabricated to demonstrate rectifying and photovoltaic behavior.