• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.43-49
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• 2013

We have studied on ozonate water cleaning mechanisms to apply in manufacturing process of 156 mm silicon wafer which is used in the solar cell fabrication. We have analyzed contamination sources on wafer surface which causes poor quality and performance of products in fabrication process, and examined cleaning process using ozonate water to eliminate it. Using this novel technology particles are removed over 94%, and remained organic materials are removed more over 45%.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.291-296
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• 2010

Recently, recycling method of waste wafer has been an area of solar cell to cut costs. Micro_blasting is one of the promising candidates for recycling of waste wafer due to their extremely simple and cost-effective process. In this paper, we attempt to explore the effect of micro_blasting and DRE(damage removal etching) process for solar cell. The optimal process conditions of micro_blasting are as follows: $10{\mu}m$ sized $Al_2O_3$ powder, jetting pressure of 400 kPa, and scan_speed of 30 cm/s. And the particles formed on micro_blasted wafer were removed by DRE precess which was performed by using HNA(HF/$HNO_3$/$CH_3COOH$) and TMAH(tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide). Structural analysis was done using a-step and the XRD patterns.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 1990.10a
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• pp.88-90
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• 1990

In this study, PN junction solar cell and P$\^$+/-N-N$\^$+/ BSF solar cell, using N-type(111), 10$\^$16/[atoms/cm$\^$-3/] wafer, were fabricated applying that ion implant method whose dose are 1E14, 1E15, 3E15 and its acceleration energy is 50Key, 100Key respectively. The impurity concentration of two types of front-side are 10$\^$18/[atoms/cm$\^$-3/] and back-side concentration for BSF solar cell is 10$\^$17/[atoms/cm$\^$-3/]. As a result of comparison for 2 typical types of cells out of various fabricated samples, open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current(Isc) of BSF solar cell are larger than those of PN solar cell by 48[%], 14[%]. Considering that the efficiency of BSF cell is 2.5[%] as well as PN solar cell's is 7.5[%], 10.0[%] of efficiency improvement effect can be obtained from BSF solar cell. Futhermore, in consequence of front-side impurity concentration change from 10$\^$17/[atoms/cm$\^$-3] to 10$\^$20/[atoms/cm$\^$-3/] alternately, the most ideal result can be expected when it is 10$\^$18/[atoms/cm$\^$-3/].

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.53.2-53.2
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• 2010

In this study, we focused on our specialized electrode process for Si back-contact crystalline solar cell. It is different from other well-known back-contact cell process for thermal aspect and specialized process. In general, aluminum makes ohmic contact to the Si wafer and acts as a back surface reflector. And, silver is used for low series resistance metal grid lines. Aluminum was sputtered onto back side of wafer. Next, silver is directly patterned on the wafer by screen printing. The sputtered aluminum was removed by wet etching process after rear silver electrode was formed. In this process, the silver paste must have good printability, electrical property and adhesion strength, before and after the aluminum etching process. Silver paste also needs low temperature firing characteristics to reduce the thermal budget. So it was seriously collected by the products of several company of regarding low temperature firing (below $250^{\circ}C$) and aluminum etching endurance. First of all, silver pastes for etching selectivity were selected to evaluate as low temperature firing condition, electrical properties and adhesive strength. Using the nano- and micron-sized silver paste, so called hybrid type, made low temperature firing. So we could minimize the thermal budget in metallization process. Also the adhesion property greatly depended on the composition of paste, especially added resin and inorganic additives. In this paper, we will show that the metallization process of back-contact solar cell was realized as optimized nano-paste characteristics.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2013

In this study, the influence on the surface passivation properties of crystalline silicon according to silicon wafer thickness, and the correlation with a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction solar cell performances were investigated. The wafers passivated by p(n)-doped a-Si:H layers show poor passivation properties because of the doping elements, such as boron(B) and phosphorous(P), which result in a low minority carrier lifetime (MCLT). A decrease in open circuit voltage ($V_{oc}$) was observed when the wafer thickness was thinned from $170{\mu}m$ to $50{\mu}m$. On the other hand, wafers incorporating intrinsic (i) a-Si:H as a passivation layer showed high quality passivation of a-Si:H/c-Si. The implied $V_{oc}$ of the ITO/p a-Si:H/i a-Si:H/n c-Si wafer/i a-Si:H/n a-Si:H/ITO stacked layers was 0.715 V for $50{\mu}m$ c-Si substrate, and 0.704 V for $170{\mu}m$ c-Si. The $V_{oc}$ in the heterojunction solar cells increased with decreases in the substrate thickness. The high quality passivation property on the c-Si led to an increasing of $V_{oc}$ in the thinner wafer. Short circuit current decreased as the substrate became thinner because of the low optical absorption for long wavelength light. In this paper, we show that high quality passivation of c-Si plays a role in heterojunction solar cells and is important in the development of thinner wafer technology.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.99.2-99.2
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• 2010

This paper investigates the dependence of a-Si:H/c-Si passivation and heterojunction solar cell performances on various cleaning processes of silicon wafer and surface morphology. It is observed that passivation quality of a-Si:H thin-films on c-Si wafer highly depends on wafer surface conditions. The MCLT(Minority carrier life time) of wafer incorporating intrinsic (i) a-Si:H as a passivation layer shows sensitive variation with cleaning process and surface morpholgy. By applying improved cleaning processes and surface morphology we can obtain the MCLT of $200{\mu}sec$ after H-termination and above 1.5msec after i a-Si:H thin film deposition, which has implied open circuit voltage of 0.720V.

• 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 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.1054-1056
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• 2002

High temperature Kermal diffusion from $POCl_3$ source usually used for conventional process through put of a cell manufacturing line and potentially reduce cell efficiency through bulk like time degradation. To fabricate high efficiency solar cells with minimal thermal processing, spin-on-doping(SOD) technique can be employed to emitter diffusion of a silicon solar cell. A technique is presented to emitter doping of a mono-crystalline solar cell using spin-on doping (SOD). Moreover it is shown that the sheet resistance variation with RTA temperature and time fer mono-crystalline and multi-crystalline silicon samples. This novel SOD technique was successfully used to produces 11.3% efficiency l04mm by 104mm size mono-crystalline silicon solar cells.