• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.192-193
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electro less plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electro less and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.272-272
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• 2009

Screen-printing metal contact is typically applied to the solar cells for mass production. And metal paste is used widely for rear contact formation of silicon solar cells. However, Screen-printing solar cell metal paste contact has low aspect ratio, low accuracy, high resistivity, hard control of unclean process. In this paper is to develop resistivity of rear contact for silicon solar cells applications. 4-point prove result, This resistivity of rear contact by Al evaporation was measured about $3.56{\times}10^6{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ less than screen printed solar cell about $52.6{\times}10^6{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.66-69
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• 2002

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon$({\mu}c-Si:H)$ films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature below $300^{\circ}C$. The $SiH_{4}$ concentration$[F(SiH_{4})/F(SiH_{4})+F(H_{2})]$ is critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. At 6% of silane concentration, deposited intrinsic ${\mu}c-Si:H$ films shows sufficiently low dark conductivity and high photo sensitivity for solar cell applications. P-type ${\mu}c-Si:H$ films deposited by Hot-Wire CVD also shows good electrical properties by varying the rate of $B_{2}H_{6}$ to $SiH_{4}$ gas. The solar cells with structure of Al/nip ${\mu}c-Si:H$/TCO/glass was fabricated with single chamber Hot-Wire CVD. About 3% solar efficiency was obtained and applicability of HWCVD for thin film solar cells was proven in this research.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.80-82
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• 2009

The dependence of the efficiency characteristics of hydrogenated amorphous silicon single junction solar cells on the various intrinsic layer thickness has been investigate in the glass/$SnO_2$:F/p,i,n a-Si:H/Al type of amorphous silicon solar cells by cluster PECVD system. The open circuit voltage, short circuit current, fill factor and conversion efficiency have been measured under AM 1.5 condition. The result of the cell performance was improved about 8.2% due to an increase in the short circuit current.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.2909-2912
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• 2010

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c$-Si:H) thin film for solar cells is prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and physical properties of the ${\mu}c$-Si:H p-layer has been investigated. With respect to stable efficiency, this film is expected to surpass the performance of conventional amorphous silicon based solar cells and very soon be a close competitor to other thin film photovoltaic materials. Silicon in various structural forms has a direct effect on the efficiency of solar cell devices with different electron mobility and photon conversion. A Raman microscope is adopted to study the degree of crystallinity of Si film by analyzing the integrated intensity peaks at 480, 510 and $520\;cm^{-1}$, which corresponds to the amorphous phase (a-Si:H), microcrystalline (${\mu}c$-Si:H) and large crystals (c-Si), respectively. The crystal volume fraction is calculated from the ratio of the crystalline and the amorphous phase. The results are compared with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) for the determination of crystallinity factor. Optical properties such as refractive index, extinction coefficient, and band gap are studied with reflectance spectra.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2007

Photovoltaic (PV) technology permits the transformation of solar light directly into electricity. For the last five years, the photovoltaic sector has experienced one of the highest growth rates worldwide (over 30% in 2006) and for the next 20 years, the average production growth rate is estimated to be between 27% and 34% annually. Currently the cost of electricity produced using photovoltaic technology is above that for traditional energy sources, but this is expected to fall with technological progress and more efficient production processes. A large scale production of solar grade silicon material of high purity could supply the world demand at a reasonably lower cost. A shift from crystalline silicon to thin film is expected in the future. The technical limit for the conversion efficiency is about 30%. It is assumed that in 2030 thin films will have a major market share (90%) and the share of crystalline cells will have decreased to 10%. Our research at Sungkyunkwan University of South Korea is confined to crystalline silicon solar cell technology. We aim to develop a technology for low cost production of high efficiency silicon solar cell. We have successfully fabricated silicon solar cells of efficiency more than 16% starting with multicrystalline wafers and that of efficiency more than 17% on single crystalline wafers with screen printing metallization. The process of transformation from the first generation to second generation solar cell should be geared up with the entry of new approaches but still silicon seems to remain as the major material for solar cells for many years to come. Local barriers to the implementation of this technology may also keep continuing up to year 2010 and by that time the cost of the solar cell generated power is expected to be 60 cent per watt. Photovoltaic source could establish itself as a clean and sustainable energy alternate to the ever depleting and polluting non-renewable energy resource.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.328-332
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• 2011

The formation of front metal contact silicon solar cells is required for low cost, low contact resistance to silicon surface. One of the front metal contacts is Ni/Cu plating that it is available to simply and inexpensive production to apply mass production. Ni is shown to be a suitable barrier to Cu diffusion into the silicon. The process of Ni electroless plating on front silicon surface is performed using a chemical bath. Additives and buffer agents such as ammonium chloride is added to maintain the stability and pH control of the bath. Ni deposition rate is found to vary with temperature, time, utilization of bath. The experimental result shown that Ni layer by SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and EDX analysis. Finally, plated Ni/Cu contact solar cell result in an efficiency of 17.69% on $2{\times}2\;cm^2$, Cz wafer.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.1034-1040
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• 1997

A solar cell conversion effiency was degraded by grain boundary effect in polycrystalline silicon. Grain boundaries acted as potential barriers as well as recombination centers for the photo-generated carriers. To reduce these effects of the grain boundaries we investigated various influencing factors such as emitter thickness thermal treatment preferential chemical etching of grain boundaries grid design contact metal and top metallization along boundaries. Pretreatment in $N_2$atmosphere and gettering by POCl$_3$and Al were performed to obtain multicrystalline silicon of the reduced defect density. Structural electrical and optical properties of slar cells were characterized before and after each fabrication process. Improved conversion efficiencies of solar cell were obtained by a combination of pretreatment above 90$0^{\circ}C$ emitter layer of 0.43${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ Al diffusion in to grain boundaries on rear side fine grid finger top Yb metal and buried contact metallization along grain boundaries.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.99-103
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• 2008

To improve efficiency of solar cells, it is important to make a light trapping structure to reduce surface reflectance for increasing absorption of sun light within the solar cells. One of the promising methods that can reduce surface reflectance is isotropic texturing with acid solution based on hydrofluoric acid(HF), nitric acid($HNO_3$), and organic additives. Anisotropic texturing with alkali solution is not suitable for multicrystalline silicon wafers because of its different grain orientation. Isotropic texturing with acid solution can uniformly etch multicrystalline silicon wafers unrelated with grain orientation, so we can get low surface reflectance. In this paper, the acid texturing solution is made up of only HF and $HNO_3$ for easy controlling the concentration and low cost compared to acid solution with organic additives. $HNO_3$ concentration and dipping time were varied to find the condition of minimum surface reflectance. Textured surfaces were observed Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) and surface reflectance were measured. The best result of arithmetic mean(wavelength from 400 nm to 1000 nm) reflectance with acid texturing is 4.64 % less than alkali texturing.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.16-17
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• 2007

To improve efficiency of solar cells, it is important to make a light trapping structure to reduce surface reflectance for increasing absorption of sun light within the solar cells. One of the promising methods that can reduce surface reflectance is isotropic texturing with acid solution based on hydrofluoric acid(HF), nitric acid($HNO_3$), and organic additives. Anisotropic texturing with alkali solution is not suitable for multicrystalline silicon wafers because of its different grain orientation. Isotropic texturing with acid solution can uniformly etch multicrystalline silicon wafers unrelated with grain orientation, so we can get low surface reflectance. In this paper, the acid texturing solution is made up of only HF and $HNO_3$ for easy controling the concentration and low cost compared to acid solution with organic additives. $HNO_3$ concentration and dipping time were varied to find the condition of minimum surface reflectance. Textured surfaces were observed Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) and surface reflectance were measured. The best result of arithmetic mean(wavelength from 400nm to 1000nm) reflectance with acid texturing is 4.64% less than alkali texturing.