• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2014.02a
• /
• pp.322.1-322.1
• /
• 2014

Many research groups have studied tandem or multi-junction cells to overcome this low efficiency and degradation. In multi-junction cells, band-gap engineering of each absorb layer is needed to absorb the light at various wavelengths efficiently. Various absorption layers can be formed using multi-junctions, such as hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H), amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe:H) and microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c$-Si:H), etc. Among them, ${\mu}c$-Si:H is the bottom absorber material because it has a low band-gap and does not exhibit light-induced degradation like amorphous silicon. Nevertheless, ${\mu}c$-Si:H requires a much thicker material (>2 mm) to absorb sufficient light due to its smaller light absorption coefficient, highlighting the need for a high growth rate for productivity. ${\mu}c$-SiGe:H has a much higher absorption coefficient than ${\mu}c$-Si:H at the low energy wavelength, meaning that the thickness of the absorption layer can be decreased to less than half that of ${\mu}c$-Si:H. ${\mu}c$-SiGe:H films were prepared using 40 MHz very high frequency PECVD method at 1 Torr. SiH4 and GeH4 were used as a reactive gas and H2 was used as a dilution gas. In this study, the ${\mu}c$-SiGe:H layer for triple solar cells applications was performed to optimize the film properties.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.359-361
• /
• 1998

Visible photoluminescence(PU was observed from hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited on silicon(a-Si : H/Si) using electron cyclotron resonance plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (ECR- PECVD) with silane ($SiH_{4}$) gas as the reactant source. The PL spectra from a-Si : H/Si were very similar to those from porous silicon. Hydrogen contents of samples annealed under oxygen atmosphere for 2minutes at $500^{\circ}C$ by rapid thermal annealing were reduced to 1~2%, and the samples did not show visible PL, indicating that hydrogen has a very important role in the PL process of a- Si : H/Si. As the thickness of deposited a-Si : H film increased, PL intensity decreased. The visi¬ble PL from a-Si: H deposited on Si by ECR-PECVD with $SiH_{4}$ . is suggested to be from silicon hydrides formed at the interface between the Si substrate and the deposited a-Si : H film during the deposition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2014.02a
• /
• pp.135.1-135.1
• /
• 2014

Silicon nanoparticles can be synthesized in a standard radio-frequency glow discharge system at low temperature (${\sim}200^{\circ}C$). Plasma synthesis of silicon nanoparticles, initially a side effect of powder formation, has become over the years an exciting field of research which has opened the way to new opportunities in the field of materials deposition and their application to optoelectronic devices. Hydrogenated polymorphous silicon (pm-Si:H) has a peculiar microstructure, namely a small volume fraction of plasma synthesized silicon nanoparticles embedded in an amorphous matrix, which originates from the unique deposition mechanism. Detailed discussion on plasma synthesis of silicon nanoparticles, growth mechanism and photovoltaic application of pm-Si:H will be presented.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.65 no.10
• /
• pp.1694-1696
• /
• 2016

Present thin film solar cells with hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO:H) as an absorber suffer from low fill factor(FF) of 61~64 [%] in spite of its benefits related to high open circuit voltage ($V_{oc}$). Since degraded quality of a-SiO:H absorber by alloying with oxygen can affect the FF, we aimed to achieve high photosensitivity by minimizing $CO_2$ gas addition. Improving optical gap($E_{opt}$) has been attained by strong hydrogen dilution combined with lowering substrate temperature down to 100 [$^{\circ}C$]. Small amount of the $CO_2$ was added in order to disturb microcrystalline formation by high hydrogen dilution. The developed a-SiO:H has high photosensitivity (${\sim}2{\times}10^5$) and high $E_{opt}$ of 1.85 [eV], which contributed to attain remarkable FF of 74 [%] and high $V_{oc}$ (>1 [V]). As a result, high power conversion efficiency of 7.18 [%] was demonstrated by using very thin absorber layer of only 100 [nm], even though we processed all experiment at extremely low temperature of 100 [$^{\circ}C$].

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
• /
• v.48 no.1
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 1999

Hyrdogenated amorphous silicon thin film transistors are used as a pixel switching device of TFT-LCDs and very active research works on a-Si:H TFTs are in progress. Further development of the technology based on a-Si:H TFTs depends on the increased understanding of the device physics and the ability to accurately simulate the characteristics of them. A two-dimensional device simulator based on the realistic and flexible physical models can guide the device designs and their optimizations. A non-uniform finite-difference TFT Simulation Program, TFT2DS has been developed to solve the electronic transport equations for a-Si:H TFTs. In TFT2DS, many of the simplifying assumptions are removed. The developed simulator was used to calculate the transfer and output characteristics of a-Si:H TFTs. The measured data were compared with the simulated ones for verifying the validity of TFT2DS. Also the transient behaviors of a-Si:H TFTs were calculated even if the values of the related parameters are not accurately specified.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.75-79
• /
• 2009

An intrinsic silicon thin film passivation layer is deposited by the microwave remote-plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at temperature of $175^{\circ}C$ and various gas ratios for solar cell applications. The good quality amorphous silicon films were formed at silane $(SiH_4)$ gas flow rates above 15 seem. The highest effective carrier lifetime was obtained at the $SiH_4$, flow rate of 20 seem and the value was about 3 times higher compared with the bulk lifetime of 5.6 ${\mu}s$ at a fixed injection level of ${\Delta}n\;=\;5{\times}10^{14}\;cm^{-3}$. An annealing treatment was performed and the carrier life times were increased approximately 5 times compared with the bulk lifetime. The optimal annealing temperature and time were obtained at 250 $^{\circ}C$ and 60 sec respectively. This indicates that the combination of the deposition of an amorphous thin film at a low temperature and the annealing treatment contributes to the excellent surface and bulk passivation.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.70-73
• /
• 2017

We investigated n-i-p type single junction hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide solar cells. These cells were without front surface texture or back reflector. Maximum power point efficiency of these cells showed that an optimized device structure is needed to get the best device output. This depends on the thickness and defect density ($N_d$) of the active layer. A typical 10% photovoltaic device conversion efficiency was obtained with a $N_d=8.86{\times}10^{15}cm^{-3}$ defect density and 630 nm active layer thickness. Our investigation suggests a correlation between defect density and active layer thickness to device efficiency. We found that amorphous silicon solar cell efficiency can be improved to well above 10%.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 1990.11a
• /
• pp.106-109
• /
• 1990

We develop the analytical model of the static and dynamic characteristics of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film transistors. It is found out that, compared with the conventional MOS model, our a-Si model has been in better agreement with experimental static and dynamic results. It may be also suggested that our a-Si model is suitable for incorporation into a widely used curcuit simulation.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.77-79
• /
• 2009

Amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells, TCO/a-Si:H (p)/c-Si(n)/a-Si:H(n)/Al, are investigated. The influence of various parameters for the front structures was studied. We used thin (10 nm) a-Si:H(p) layers of amorphous hydrogenated silicon are deposited on top of a thick ($500{\mu}m$) crystalline c-Si wafer. This work deals with the influence of the a-Si:H(p) doping concentration on the solar cell performance is studied.

• Journal of Information Display
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.12-16
• /
• 2005

Gate and data drivers are essential for driving active matrix display. In this study, we integrate drivers with a-Si:H to develop a compact, better reliability and cost effective display. We design and fabricate drivers with conventional a-Si:H thin film transistors (TFTs). The output voltages are investigated according to the input voltage, temperature and operation time. Based on these studies, we propose here a new driver to prevent gate line from the floated state. For the external coupled voltage fluctuation, the proposed driver shows better stability.