• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.509-514
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• 2020

The two key variables of an Si solar cell, i.e., emitter (n-type window layer) and base (p-type substrate) doping levels or concentrations, are studied using Medici, a 2-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool. The substrate is p-type and 150 ㎛ thick, the pn junction is 2 ㎛ from the front surface, and the cell is lit on the front surface. The doping concentration ranges from 1 × 10¹⁰ cm^-3 to 1 × 10²⁰ cm^-3 for both emitter and base, resulting in a matrix of 11 by 11 or a total of 121 data points. With respect to increasing donor concentration (Nd) in the emitter, the open-circuit voltage (Voc) is little affected throughout, and the short-circuit current (Isc) is affected only at a very high levels of Nd, exceeding 1 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3, dropping abruptly by about 12%, i.e., from Isc = 6.05 × 10^-9 A·㎛^-1, at Nd = 1 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3 to Isc = 5.35 × 10^-9 A·㎛^-1 at Nd = 1 × 10²⁰ cm^-3, likely due to minority-carrier, or hole, recombination at the very high doping level. With respect to increasing acceptor concentration (Na) in the base, Isc is little affected throughout, but Voc increases steadily, i.e, from Voc = 0.29 V at Na = 1 × 10¹² cm^-3 to 0.69 V at Na = 1 × 10¹⁸ cm^-3. On average, with an order increase in Na, Voc increases by about 0.07 V, likely due to narrowing of the depletion layer and lowering of the carrier recombination at the pn junction. At the maximum output power (Pmax), a peak value of 3.25 × 10^-2 W·cm^-2 or 32.5 mW·cm^-2 is observed at the doping combination of Nd = 1 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3, a level at which Si is degenerate (being metal-like), and Na = 1 × 10¹⁷ cm^-3, and minimum values of near zero are observed at very low levels of Nd ≤ 1 × 10¹³ cm^-3. This wide variation in Pmax, even within a given kind of solar cell, indicates that selecting an optimal combination of donor and acceptor doping concentrations is likely most important in solar cell engineering.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
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• v.34D no.7
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• pp.45-55
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• 1997

Electircal characteristics of HgCdTe photodiodes with a heterostructure to achieve high performance are analyzed numerically. A two-dimensional device simulator which can handle a HgCdTe heterostructure, was developed for this work. The effects of band nonparabolicity, carrier degeneracy, and band-offset of heterointerace are included in a carrier transport model. A unified generation-recombination model includes simultaneously phonon-assisted tunneling and pure tunneling of carriers via traps is newly employed for describing the electric field and temperature dependency of dark current effectively. Furthermore, to accurately predict the effect mole fraction variations on genration rates, ray-trace algorithm is incorporated in the our simulator. Under the various circumstances such as dark, illumination, and surface states, electrical properties of planar heterostructure photodiode are presented and those of homojunction are compared. These results serve as a explanation of cap layer's role on performance.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.254-260
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• 2014

Organic solar cells have attracted extensive attention as a promising approach for cost-effective photovoltaic devices. However, organic solar cell has disadvantage of low power conversion efficiency in comparison with other type of solar cell, due to the recombination ratio of hole and electron is too large in the active layer. Thus we have change the surface structure of PEDOT:PSS layers to improve the current density by colloidal lithography method using various-size of polystyrene sphere. The two types of coating method were applied to fabricate the different pattern shape and height, such as spin coating and drop casting. Using the organic solvent, we easily eliminate the PS sphere and could make the varied pattern shapes by controlling the wet etching time. Also we have measured the electrical properties of patterned PEDOT:PSS film to check whether it is suitable for organic photovoltaics.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.1-10
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• 1996

Solar cells made of the edge-defined film-fed growth Si are characterized using current-voltage, surface photovoltage, electron beam induced current, electron microprobe, scanning electron microscopy, and electron backscattering. The weak temperature dependence of the I-V curves in the EFG solar cells is due to a voltage variable shunt resistance giving higher diode ideality factors than the ideal one. The voltage variable shunt resistance is modeled by a modified recombination mechanism which includes carrier tunneling to distributed impurity energy states in the band gap within the space-charge region. The junction integrity and the substrate quality are characterized simultaneously by combining I-V and surface photovoltage (SPV) measurements. The diode ideality factors and the surface photovoltages characterize the junction integrity while the SPV diffusion lengths characterizes the substrate quality. Most of the measured samples show the voltage variable shunt resistance although how serious it is depends on the solar cell efficiency. The voltage variable shunt resistance is understood as one of the most important factors of the degradation of EFG solar cells.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.50
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• pp.17.1-17.9
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• 2020

Recent advances in fabrication have enabled radial-junction architectures for cost-effective and high-performance optoelectronic devices. Unlike a planar PN junction, a radial-junction geometry maximizes the optical interaction in the three-dimensional (3D) structures, while effectively extracting the generated carriers via the conformal PN junction. In this paper, we report characterizations of radial PN junctions that consist of p-type Si micropillars created by deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE) and an n-type layer formed by phosphorus gas diffusion. We use electron-beam induced current (EBIC) microscopy to access the 3D junction profile from the sidewall of the pillars. Our EBIC images reveal uniform PN junctions conformally constructed on the 3D pillar array. Based on Monte-Carlo simulations and EBIC modeling, we estimate local carrier separation/collection efficiency that reflects the quality of the PN junction. We find the EBIC efficiency of the pillar array increases with the incident electron beam energy, consistent with the EBIC behaviors observed in a high-quality planar PN junction. The magnitude of the EBIC efficiency of our pillar array is about 70% at 10 kV, slightly lower than that of the planar device (≈ 81%). We suggest that this reduction could be attributed to the unpassivated pillar surface and the unintended recombination centers in the pillar cores introduced during the DRIE processes. Our results support that the depth-dependent EBIC approach is ideally suitable for evaluating PN junctions formed on micro/nanostructured semiconductors with various geometry.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.415-418
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• 2014

Phenyltrimethoxysilane (PTMS) was anchored onto the sensitized $TiO_2$ nanoparticles. This insulating molecular layer effectively inhibited the charge recombination at the interface of $TiO_2$/electrolyte in the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) without sacrificing the dye-loading capacity of the nanocrystalline $TiO_2$. DSCs using PTMS-modified $TiO_2$ exhibited a short-circuit current ($J_{SC}$) of $15.9mA/cm^2$, an open-circuit voltage ($V_{OC}$) of 789 mV, and a fill factor (FF) of 68.2%, yielding an overall conversion efficiency (${\eta}$) of 8.55% under $100mW/cm^2$ illumination. The resulting cell efficiency was improved by ~10% as compared with the reference cell.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.11
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• pp.2214-2218
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• 2009

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) has been considered as a possible alternative to current silicon based p-n junction photovoltaic devices due to its advantages of high efficiency, simple fabrication process and low production cost. Numerous researches for high efficient DSC in the various fields are under way even now. Among them, the compact layer, which prevents the back electron transfer between transparent conductive oxides and the redox electrolyte, is fabricated by various methods such as a ZnO dip-coating, $TiCl_4$ dip-coating, and Ti sputtering. In this study, we tried to fabricate the $TiO_2$ compact layer by the spin-coating method using aqueous $TiCl_4$ solution. The effect of the spin-coating method was checked as compared with conventional dip-coating method. As a result, DSC with a spin-coated compact layer had 33.4% and 6% better efficiency than standard DSC and DSC with a dip-coated compact layer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.317-321
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• 2019

We investigated the characteristics of nano crystalline silicon(nc-Si) thin-film solar cells on graphite substrates. Amorphous silicon(a-Si) thin-film solar cells on graphite plates show low conversion efficiency due to high surface roughness, and many recombination by dangling bonds. In previous studies, we deposited barrier films by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD) on graphite plate to reduce surface roughness and achieved ~7.8 % cell efficiency. In this study, we fabricated nc-Si thin film solar cell on graphite in order to increase the efficiency of solar cells. We achieved 8.45 % efficiency on graphite plate and applied this to nc-Si on graphite sheet for flexible solar cell applications. The characterization of the cell is performed with external quantum efficiency(EQE) and current density-voltage measurements(J-V). As a result, we obtain ~8.42 % cell efficiency in a flexible solar cell fabricated on a graphite sheet, which performance is similar to that of cells fabricated on graphite plates.

• Solar Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 1997

Because grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon act as potential barriers and recombination centers for the photo-generated charge carriers, these defects degrade conversion effiency of solar cell. To reduce these effects of grain boundaries, we investigated various influencing factors such as thermal treatment, various grid pattern, selective wet etching for grain boundaries, buried contact metallization along grain boundaries, grid on metallic thin film. Pretreatment above $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ atmosphere, gettering by $POCl_3$ and Al treatment for back surface field contributed to obtain a high quality poly-Si. To prevent carrier losses at the grain boundaries, we carried out surface treatment using Schimmel etchant. This etchant delineated grain boundaries of $10{\mu}m$ depth as well as surface texturing effect. A metal AI diffusion into grain boundaries on rear side reduced back surface recombination effects at grain boundaries. A combination of fine grid with finger spacing of 0.4mm and buried electrode along grain boundaries improved short circuit current density of solar cell. A ultra-thin Chromium layer of 20nm with transmittance of 80% reduced series resistance. This paper focused on the grain boundary effect for terrestrial applications of solar cells with low cost, large area, and high efficiency.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.34-39
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• 2011

Screen printing method is a common way to fabricate the crystalline silicon solar cell with low-cost and high-efficiency. The screen printing metallization use silver paste and aluminum paste for front and rear contact, respectively. Especially the rear contact between aluminum and silicon is important to form the back surface filed (Al-BSF) after firing process. BSF plays an important role to reduces the surface recombination due to $p^+$ doping of back surface. However, Al electrode on back surface leads to bow occurring by differences in coefficient of thermal expansion of the aluminum and silicon. In this paper, we studied the properties of mono crystalline silicon solar cell for rear electrode with aluminum and aluminum-boron in order to characterize bow and BSF of each paste. The 156*156 $m^2$ p-type silicon wafers with $200{\mu}m$ thickness and 0.5-3 ${\Omega}\;cm$ resistivity were used after texturing, diffusion, and antireflection coating. The characteristics of solar cells was obtained by measuring vernier callipers, scanning electron microscope and light current-voltage. Solar cells with aluminum paste on the back surface were achieved with $V_{OC}$ = 0.618V, JSC = 35.49$mA/cm^2$, FF(Fill factor) = 78%, Efficiency = 17.13%.