• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.108-112
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• 2012

Crystalline silicon solar cell remains the major player in the photovoltaic marketplace with 90 % of the market, despite the development of a variety of thin film technologies. Silicon's excellent efficiency, stability, material abundance and low toxicity have helped to maintain its position of dominance. However, the cost of silicon photovoltaic remains a major barrier to reducing the cost of silicon photovoltaics. Using the crystalline silicon wafer with thinner thickness is the promising way for cost and material reduction in the solar cell production. However, the thinner thickness of silicon wafer is, the worse bow phenomenon is induced. The bow phenomenon is observed when two or more layers of materials of different temperature expansion coefficiencies are in contact, in this case silicon and aluminum. In this paper, the solar cells were fabricated with different thicknesses of Al layer in order to reduce the bow phenomenon. With lower paste applications, we observed that the bow could be reduced by up to 40% of the largest value with 130 micron thickness of the wafer even though the conversion efficiency decrease of 0.5 % occurred. Since the bowed wafers lead to unacceptable yield losses during the module construction, the reduction of bow is indispensable on thin crystalline silicon solar cell. In this work, we have studied on the counterbalance between the bow and conversion efficiency and also suggest the formation of enough back surface field (BSF) with thinner Al paste application.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.17-20
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• 2018

The dependency of the photovoltaic performance of p-/n-type silicon solar-cells on the metallic contaminant type (Fe, Cu, and Ni) and concentration was investigated. The minority-carrier recombination lifetime was degraded with increasing metallic contaminant concentration, however, the degradation sensitivity of recombination lifetime was lower at n-type than p-type silicon wafer, which means n-type silicon wafer have an immunity to the effect of metallic contamination. This is because heavy metal ions with positive charge have a much larger capture cross section of electron than hole, so that reaction with electrons occurs much more easily. The power conversion efficiency of n-type solar-cells was degraded by 9.73% when metallic impurities were introduced in the silicon bulk, which is lower degradation compared to p-type solar-cells (15.61% of efficiency degradation). Therefore, n-type silicon solar-cells have a potential to achieve high efficiency of the solar-cell in the future with a merit of immunity against metal contamination.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.52-58
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• 2022

Silicon carbide powder was prepared from carbon black and silicon recovered from waste solar panels. In the solar power generation market, the number of crystalline silicon modules exceeds 90%. As the expiration date of a photovoltaic module arrives, the development of technology for recovering and utilizing silicon is very important from an environmental and economic point of view. In this study, silicon was recovered as silicon carbide from waste solar panels: 99.99% silicon powder was recovered through purification from a 95.74% purity waste silicon wafer. To examine the synthesis characteristics of SiC powder, purified 99.99% silicon powder and carbon powder were mixed and heat-treated (1,300, 1,400 and 1,500 ℃) in an Ar atmosphere. The characteristics of silicon and silicon carbide powders were analyzed using particle size distribution analyzer, XRD, SEM, ICP, FT-IR, and Raman analysis.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.346-346
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• 2009

For high efficiency hetero junction solar cell over 20%, good silicon wafer passivation is one of the most important technological factor. Compared to the conventional PECVD technique, HWCVD has appeared as an promising alternative for high quality passivation layer formation. In this work, HWCVD passivation layer characteristics have been intensively investigated on wafer surface treatment, Hydrogen density in deposited thin layer and thermal effects in deposition process. Comprehensive results of the individual process factors on interface passivation has been discussed and resultant silicon hetero junction solar cell characteristics has been investigated.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.68-73
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• 2008

It is very important that constitution of good hetero-junction interface with a high quality amorphous silicon thin films on very cleaned c-Si wafer for making high efficiency hetero-junction solar cells. For achieving the high efficiency solar cells, the inspection and management of c-Si wafer surface conditions are essential subjects. In this experiment, we analyzed the c-Si wafer surface very sensitively using Spectroscopic Ellipsometer for < ${\varepsilon}2$ > and u-PCD for effective carrier life time, so we accomplished < ${\varepsilon}2$ > value 43.02 at 4.25eV by optimizing the cleaning process which is representative of c-Si wafer surface conditions very well. We carried out that the deposition of high quality hydrogenated silicon amorphous thin films by RF-PECVD systems having high density and low crystallinity which are results of effective medium approximation modeling and fitting using spectroscopic ellipsometer. We reached the cell efficiency 12.67% and 14.30% on flat and textured CZ c-Si wafer each under AM1.5G irradiation, adopting the optimized cleaning and deposition conditions that we made. As a result, we confirmed that spectroscopic ellipsometry is very useful analyzing methode for hetero-junction solar cells which need to very thin and high quality multi layer structure.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.25-27
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• 2017

Nanoscale textured black silicon has attracted intensive attention due to its great potential as applications in multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells. It absorbs sunlight over a broad range of wavelengths but introduces large recombination centers, non-uniform doping into cell. In this study, we present a metal-assisted chemical etching technique plus alkaline etching process to fabricate nanoscale pyramid structures with optimized condition. To make the structures, silver nanoparticles-loaded mc-Si wafer was submerged into $H_2O_2/HF$ solution first for nanohole texturing the wafer and textured wafer etched again with KOH solution for making nanoscale pyramid structures. The average reflectivity (350-1050 nm) is about 8.42% with anti-reflection coating.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.43.2-43.2
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• 2011

Minority Carrier recombination should be suppressed for high efficiency solar cells. However, impurities in the silicon bulk region deteriorate the minority carrier lifetimes, causes conversion efficiency drop. In this study, we introduced phosphorus external gettering for silicon heterojunction solar cell substrates. Gettering was undergone at 750, 800, 850 and $900^{\circ}C$ in furnace for 30 minutes. Bulk lifetimes and calculated diffusion length were improved. We applied phosphorus gettering to silicon heterojunction solar cells. Gettered group and ungettered group were used as substrate of silicon heterojunction solar cells. After fabrication, characteristics of solar cells were analyzed. The results were observed to see the enhancement of substrate quality which directly connects with solar cell properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.54-54
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• 2009

Ag thick film has been used for electrode materials with the excellent conductivity. Ag electrode is used in screen-printed silicon solar cells as a electrode material. Compared to photolithography and buried-contact technology, screen-printing technology has the merit of fabricating low-priced cells and enormous cells in a few hours. Ag paste consists of Ag powders, vehicles and additives such as frits, metal powders (Pb, Bi, Zn). Frits accelerate the sintering of Ag powders and induce the connection between Ag electrode and Si wafer. Thermophysical properties of frits and reactions among Ag, frits and Si influence on cell performance. In this study, Ag pastes were fabricated with adding different kinds of frits. After Ag pastes were printed on silicon wafer by screen-printing technology, the cells were fired using a belt furnace. The cell parameters were measured by light I-V to determine the short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, FF and cell efficiency. In order to study the relationship between the reactivity of Ag, frit, Si and the electrical properties of cells, the reaction of frits and Si wafer on was studied with thermal properties of frits. The interface structure between Ag electrode and Si wafer were also measured for understanding the reactivity of Ag, frit and Si wafer. The excessive reactivity of Ag, frit and Si wafer certainly degraded the electrical properties of cells. These preliminary studies suggest that reactions among Ag, frits and Si wafer should optimally be controlled for cell performances.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.1005-1006
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• 2013

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.505-512
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• 2012

In this study, an inspection system based on an optical scanning mechanism is developed for the inspection of silicon wafers in solar cells. In particular, a structured hybrid illumination system that can satisfy the illumination requirement for the detection of various defects is designed. In the hybrid illumination system, the optimum illumination conditions are selected by considering the design of experiment in master glass and silicon wafer. The illumination conditions available are B-high, BG-high, BR-high, and BGR-high for master glass and R-middle-B-medium for silicon wafers. By using the illumination conditions for silicon wafers, numerous surface defects like pinhole, scratch, and chipping, can be accurately detected. The hybrid illumination system is expected to be widely used for the inspection of silicon wafers in solar cells.