• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

Light induced degradation is one of the major research challenges of hydrogenated amorphous silicon related thin film silicon solar cells. Amorphous silicon shows creation of metastable defect states, originating from elevated concentration of dangling bonds during light exposure. The metastable defect states work as recombination centers, and mostly affects quality of intrinsic layer in solar cells. In this paper we present results of light induced degradation in thin film silicon solar cells and discussion on physical origin, mechanism and practical solutions of light induced degradation in thin film silicon solar cells. In-situ light-soaking IV measurement techniques are presented. We also present thin film silicon material with silicon nano-quantum dots embedded within amorphous matrix, which shows superior stability during light-soaking. Our results suggest that solar cell using silicon nano-quantum dots in abosrber layer shows superior stability under light soaking, compared to the conventional amorphous silicon solar cell.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.5
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• pp.851-856
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• 2017

Research on the edge isolation process of typical polycrystalline silicon solar cells was carried out using laser scribing equipment. The voltage-current characteristics of the solar cell before and after laser scribing were analyzed using a solar simulator. Current density and efficiency increased as the fill factor of the solar cell remained constant after the laser scribing process. The efficiency of the solar cell can be increased in a short time by the edge isolation process performed via a laser scribing process. The polycrystalline silicon solar cell was made into a series electrode, and the efficiency of the solar cell increased because the width of the solar cell was narrowed and the active region was widened by the laser scribing process.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.94-101
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• 2020

This study was trying to focus on achieving high efficiency of multi junction solar cell with thin film silicon solar cells. The proposed thin film Si-Ge/c-Si tandem junction solar cell concept with a combination of low-cost thin-film silicon solar cell technology and high-efficiency c-Si cells in a monolithically stacked configuration. The tandem junction solar cells using amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe:H) as an absorption layer of upper sub-cell were simulated through ASA (Advanced Semiconductor Analysis) simulator for acquiring the optimum structure. Graded Ge composition - effect of E_g profiling and inserted buffer layer between absorption layer and doped layer showed the improved current density (J_sc) and conversion efficiency (η). 13.11% conversion efficiency of the tandem junction solar cell was observed, which is a result of showing the possibility of thin film Si-Ge/c-Si tandem junction solar cell.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2013

The current solar cell industry is experiencing a temporary plateau due to a sluggish economy and oversupply. It is expected that the solar industry can see similar growth to that of the recent past by overcoming the current situation, as there is growing demand globally for solar energy. The current situation led to restructuring of the world's solar industry, and domestic firms will need to have competitiveness through strategic approaches and proprietary technology to survive in the global solar market. Crystalline and amorphous silicon based solar cells have led the solar industry and occupied half or more of the market thus far. They will do so in the future PV market as well by playing a pivotal role in the solar industry. In this paper, the current status and prospects of silicon based solar cells, from materials to comprehensive and high efficiency technology that can emerge in the future, are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.82-82
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• 2015

Industrial crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells with using a screen printing technology share the global market over 90% and they will continue to be the same for at least the next decade. It seems that the $2^{nd}$ generation and the $3^{rd}$ generation technologies have not yet demonstrated competitiveness in terms of performance and cost. In 2014, new world record efficiency 25.6% (Area-$143.7cm^2$, Voc-0.740V, $Jsc-41.8mA/cm^2$, FF-0.827) was announced from Panasonic and its cell structure is Back Contact $HIT^*$ c-Si solar cell. Here, amorphous silicon passivated contacts were newly applied to back contact solar cell. On the other hand, 24.9% $TOPCon^{**}$ cell was announced from Fraunhofer ISE and its key technology is an excellent passivation quality applying tunnel oxide (<2 nm) between metal and silicon or emitter and base. As a result, to realize high efficiency, high functional technologies are quite required to overcome a theoretical limitation of c-Si solar cell efficiency. In this presentation, Si solar cell technology summarized in the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics ($^{***}ITRPV$ 2014) is introduced, and the present status of R&D associated with various c-Si solar cell technologies will be reviewed. In addition, national R&D projects of c-Si solar cells to be performed by Korea University are shown briefly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.299.2-299.2
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• 2013

We investigated the potassium remaining on a crystalline silicon solar cell after potassium hydroxide (KOH) etching and its effect on the lifetime of the solar cell. KOH etching is generally used to remove the saw damage caused by cutting a Si ingot; it can also be used to etch the rear side of a textured crystalline silicon solar cell before atomic layer-deposited Al2O3 growth. However, the potassium remaining after KOH etching is known to be detrimental to the efficiency of Si solar cells. In this study, we etched a crystalline silicon solar cell in three ways in order to determine the effect of the potassium remnant on the efficiency of Si solar cells. After KOH etching, KOH and tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) were used to etch the rear side of a crystalline silicon solar cell. To passivate the rear side, an Al2O3 layer was deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD). After ALD Al2O3 growth on the KOH-etched Si surface, we measured the lifetime of the solar cell by quasi steady-state photoconductance (QSSPC, Sinton WCT-120) to analyze how effectively the Al2O3 layer passivated the interface of the Al2O3 layer and the Si surface. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) was also used to measure how much potassium remained on the surface of the Si wafer and at the interface of the Al2O3 layer and the Si surface after KOH etching and wet cleaning.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.964-967
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• 2002

The effectiveness of silicon nitride SiNx surface passivation is investigated and quantified. This study adopted single-layer antireflection (SLAR) coating of SiNx for efficiency improvement of solar cell. The silicon nitride films were deposited by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) in planar coil reactor. The process gases used were pure ammonia and a mixture of silane and helium. The thickness and the refractive index on the films were measured by ellipsometry and chemical bonds were determined by using an FT-IR equipment. This films obtained were analyzed in term of hydrogen content, refractive index for gas flow ratio $(NH_3/SiH_4)$, and efficiency of solar cell. The polycrystalline silicon solar cells passivated by silicon nitride shows efficiency above 12.8%.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.185-190
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• 2018

Dopant-free silicon heterojunction solar cells using Transition Metal Oxide(TMO) such as Molybdenum Oxide($MoO_X$) and Vanadium Oxide($V_2O_X$) have been focused on to increase the work function of TMO in order to maximize the work function difference between TMO and n-Si for a high-efficiency solar cell. One another way to increase the work function difference is to control the silicon wafer resistivity. In this paper, dopant-free silicon heterojunction solar cells were fabricated using the wafer with the various resistivity and analyzed to understand the effect of n-Si work function. As a result, it is shown that the high passivation and junction quality when $V_2O_X$ deposited on the wafer with low work function compared to the high work function wafer, inducing the increase of higher collection probability, especially at long wavelength region. the solar cell efficiency of 15.28% was measured in low work function wafer, which is 34% higher value than the high work function solar cells.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.261-266
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• 2003

The presence of ultrasonic wave in the caustic etching process enhances the etching rate and results in finer and more homogeneous textured structure of the crystalline silicon surface. The silicon solar cell textured in the caustic solution at $60^{\circ}C$ with ultrasonic wave gives higher cell performance than the cell textured at $70^{\circ}C$ without ultrasonic wave. This result indicates a strong possibility of lowering the production cost of the silicon solar cell through saving the thermal budget or expensive chemical normally employed in the texturisation of the crystalline silicon.