• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2021

The surface of silicon dummy wafers is contaminated with metallic impurities owing to the reaction with and adhesion of chemicals during the oxidation process. These metallic impurities negatively affect the device performance, reliability, and yield. To solve this problem, a wafer-cleaning process that removes metallic impurities is essential. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) cleaning is commonly used, but there are problems such as increased surface roughness and formation of metal hydroxides. Herein, we attempt to use a chelating agent (EDTA) to reduce the surface roughness, improve the stability of cleaning solutions, and prevent the re-adsorption of impurities. The bonding between the cleaning solution and metal powder is analyzed by referring to the Pourbaix diagram. The changes in the ionic conductivity, H2O2 decomposition behavior, and degree of dissolution are checked with a conductivity meter, and the changes in the absorbance and particle size before and after the reaction are confirmed by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) analyses. Thus, the addition of a chelating agent prevents the decomposition of H2O2 and improves the life of the silicon wafer cleaning solution, allowing it to react smoothly with metallic impurities.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.15-20
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• 2019

Most high-efficiency n-type silicon solar cells are based on the high quality surface passivation and ohmic contact between the emitter and the metal. Currently, various metalization methods such as screen printing using metal paste and physical vapor deposition are being used in forming electrodes of n-type silicon solar cell. In this paper, we analyzed the degradation factors induced by the front electrode formation process using e-beam evaporation of double passivation structure of p-type emitter and $Al_2O_3/SiN_x$ for high efficiency solar cell using n-type bulk silicon. In order to confirm the cause of the degradation, the passivation characteristics of each electrode region were determined through a quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC).

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.357-361
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• 2005

Low-stress silicon nitride (LSN) thin films with embedded metal line have been developed as free standing structures to keep microspheres in proper locations and localized heat source for application to a chip-based sensor array for the simultaneous and near-real-time detection of multiple analytes in solution. The LSN film has been utilized as a structural material as well as a hard mask layer for wet anisotropic etching of silicon. The LSN was deposited by LPCVD (Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition) process by varing the ratio of source gas flows. The residual stress of the LSN film was measured by laser curvature method. The residual stress of the LSN film is 6 times lower than that of the stoichiometric silicon nitride film. The test results showed that not only the LSN film but also the stack of LSN layers with embedded metal line could stand without notable deflection.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.477-481
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• 2004

High quality polycrystalline silicon is very critical part of the high quality thin film transistor(TFT) for display devices. Metal induced lateral crystallization(MILC) is one of the most successful technologies to crystallize the amorphous silicon at low temperature(below $550^{\circ}C$) and uses conventional and large glass substrate. In this study, we observed that the MILC behavior changed with abrupt variation of the amorphous silicon active pattern width. We explained these phenomena with the novel MILC mechanism model. The 10 nm thick Ni layers were deposited on the glass substrate having various amorphous silicon patterns. Then, we annealed the sample at $550^{\circ}C$ with rapid thermal annealing(RTA) apparatus and measured the crystallized length by optical microscope. When MILC progress from narrow-width-area(the width was $w_2$) to wide-width-area(the width was $w_1$), the MILC rate decreased dramatically and was not changed for several hours(incubation time). Also the incubation time increased as the ratio, $w_1/w_2$, get larger. We can explain these phenomena with the tensile stress that was caused by volume shrinkage due to the phase transformation from amorphous silicon to crystalline silicon.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.637-641
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• 2012

Due to its high production cost and relatively high energy consumption during the Siemens process, poly-silicon makers have been continuously and eagerly sought another silicon route for decades. One candidate that consumes less energy and has a simpler acidic and metallurgical purification procedure is upgraded metallurgical-grade (UMG) silicon. Owing to its low purity, UMG silicon often requires special steps to minimize the impurity effects and to remove or segregate the metal atoms in the bulk and to remove interfacial defects such as precipitates and grain boundaries. A process often called the 'gettering process' is used with phosphorus diffusion in this experiment in an effort to improve the performance of silicon solar cells using UMG silicon. The phosphorous gettering processes were optimized and compared to the standard POCl process so as to increase the minority carrier lifetime(MCLT) with the duration time and temperature as variables. In order to analyze the metal impurity concentration and distribution, secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) was utilized before and after the phosphorous gettering process.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.3-11
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• 2022

Silicon is the most abundant metal element in the Earth's crust. Metallurgical-grade silicon (MG-Si) is an important metal that has wide industrial applications, such as a deoxidizer in the steelmaking industry, alloying elements in the aluminum industry, the preparation of organosilanes, and the production of electronic-grade silicon, which is used in the electronics industry as well as solar cells. MG-Si is produced industrially by the reduction smelting of silicon dioxide with carbon in the form of coal, coke, or wood chips in electric arc furnaces. MG-Si is purified by chemical treatments, such as the Siemens process. Most single-crystal silicon is produced using the Czochralski method. These smelting and refining methods will be helpful for the development of new recycling processes using secondary silicon resources.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.1085-1088
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• 2003

In this work, we fabricated a gas-sensing device based on porous silicon(PS), and its I-V and C-V properties were investigated for sensing alcohol vapor. The structure of the sensor consists of thin Au/Oxidized porous silicon/porous silicon/Silicon/Al, where the silicon substrate is etched anisotropically to be prepared into a membrane shape. As the result, I-V curves showed typical tunneling property, and C-V curves were shaped like those of a MIS (metal-insulator- semiconductor) capacitor, where the capacitance in accumulation was increased with alcohol vapor concentration.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.401-405
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• 2017

Because silicon thin film solar cells have a high absorption coefficient in visible light, they can absorb 90% of the solar spectrum in a $1-{\mu}m$-thick layer. Silicon thin film solar cells also have high transparency and are lightweight. Therefore, they can be used for building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. However, the contact electrode needs to be replaced for fabricating silicon thin film solar cells in BIPV systems, because most of the silicon thin film solar cells use metal electrodes that have a high reflectivity and low transmittance. In this study, we replace the conventional aluminum top electrode with a transparent aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) electrode, the band level of which matches well with that of the intrinsic layer of the silicon thin film solar cell and has high transmittance. We show that the AZO effectively replaces the top metal electrode and the bottom fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate without a noticeable degradation of the photovoltaic characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.412-417
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• 2000

High electric field stressed trap distributions were investigated in the thin silicon oxide of polycrystalline silicon gate metal oxide semiconductor capacitors. The transient currents associated with the off time of stressed voltage were used to measure the density and distribution of high voltage stress induced traps. The transient currents were due to the discharging of traps generated by high stress voltage in the silicon oxides. The trap distributions were relatively uniform near both cathode and anode interface in polycrystalline silicon gate metal oxide semiconductor devices. The stress generated trap distributions were relatively uniform the order of $10^{11}$~$10^{12}$ [states/eV/$\textrm{cm}^2$] after a stress. The trap densities at the oxide silicon interface after high stress voltages were in the $10^{10}$~$10^{13}$ [states/eV/$\textrm{cm}^2$]. It was appeared that the transient current that flowed when the stress voltages were applied to the oxide was caused by carriers tunneling through the silicon oxide by the high voltage stress generated traps.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.82-87
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• 2007

The electrical properties of metallic junction diodes and metallic source/drain (S/D) Schottky barrier metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (SB-MOSFET) were simulated. By using the abrupt metallic junction at the S/D region, the short-channel effects in nano-scaled MOSFET devices can be effectively suppressed. Particularly, the effects of trap states at the metal-silicide/silicon interface of S/D junction were simulated by taking into account the tail distributions and the Gaussian distributions at the silicon band edge and at the silicon midgap, respectively. As a result of device simulation, the reduction of interfacial trap states with Gaussian distribution is more important than that of interfacial trap states with tail distribution for improving the metallic junction diodes and SB-MOSFET. It is that a forming gas annealing after silicide formation significantly improved the electrical properties of metallic junction devices.