• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.41-47
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• 2024

CIGS solar cells are thin film solar cells that have excellent light absorption coefficient and can be manufactured with high efficiency through the use of low materials. In Korea, they must pass KS certification for home and commercial installation. KS C 8562 is a standard for evaluating the durability of CIGS and thin film amorphous silicon solar modules and deals with contents such as light, temperature, humidity, and mechanical durability. Unlike general crystalline silicon solar modules, the CIGS solar module has a different behavior of output change through these environmental tests, so if it shows 90% or more of the rated output suggested by the manufacturer after the final test, it is judged to be a suitable product. In this paper, the output before and after individual tests was measured through the test method of KS C 8562 to observe the output change and to discover the vulnerabilities of the CIGS solar module when exposed to various environments. Through this, it was confirmed that humidity exposure was the most vulnerable and that it had output recovery characteristics for light (visible light and ultraviolet rays). This study attempted to present the output behavior characteristics and data of the CIGS module at the time when the high efficiency thin film photovoltaic module market is expected to be created in the future.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.400-400
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• 2009

Despite the success of Cu(In,Ga)$Se_2$ (CIGS) based PV technology now emerging in several industrial initiatives, concerns about the cost of In and Ga are often expressed. It is believed that the cost of those elements will eventually limit the cost reduction of this technology. One candidate to replace CIGS is $Cu_2ZnSnSe_4$ (CZTSe), fabricated by co-evaporation technique. Co-evaporation technique will be one of the best methods to control film composition. This type of absorber derives from the $CuInSe^2$ chalcopyrite structure by substituting half of the indium atoms with zinc and other half with tin. Energy bandgap of this material has been reported to range from 0.8eV for selenide to 1.5eV for the sulfide and large coefficient in the order of $10^{14}cm^{-1}$, which means large possibility of commercial production of the most suitable absorber by using the CZTSe film. In this work, Effects of substrate temperature of $Cu_2ZnSnSe_4$ absorber layer on the performance of thin films solar cells were investigated. We reported on some of the absorber properties and device results.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.1473-1476
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• 2013

Solution-based deposition of $CuIn_xGa_{1-x}Se_2$ (CIGSe) thin films is well known non-vacuum process for the fabrication of CIGSe solar cells. However, due to the usage of organic chemicals in the preparation of CIG precursor solutions, the crystallization of the polycrystalline CIGSe and the performance of CIGSe thin film solar cells were significantly affected by the carbon residues from the organic chemicals. In this work, we have tried to eliminate the carbon residues in the CIG precursor thin films efficiently by using soft-annealing process. By adjusting soft-annealing temperature, it is possible to control the amount of carbon residues in CIG precursor thin films. The reduction of the carbon residues in CIG precursors by high temperature soft-annealing improves the grain size and morphology of polycrystalline CIGSe thin films, which are also closely related with the electrical properties of CIGSe thin film solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.235-236
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• 2008

Wet etched ZnO:Al films for thin film solar cells were prepared by Facing Target sputtering(FTS) method. Wet etching has been used to produce a rough TCO surface that enables light trapping in the absorber. The ZnO:Al films for thin film solar cells were etched by HCl 0.5%. The etching performance of ZnO:Al films can be tuned by changing etching time. The etched ZnO:Al films compared to a smooth ZnO:Al thin film structure. From the results, the lowest resistivity of deposited films was $5.67\times10^{-4}$ [$\Omega$-cm] and the transmittance of all ZnO:Al thin films were over 80% in visible range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.416-416
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• 2016

Organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite solar cells have received attention because it has a number of advantages with excellent light harvesting, high carrier mobility, and facile solution processability and also recorded recently power conversion efficiency (PCEs) of over 20%. The major issue on perovskite solar cells have been reached the limit of small area laboratory scale devices produced using fabrication techniques such as spin coating and physical vapor deposition which are incompatible with low-cost and large area fabrication of perovskite solar cells using printing and coating techniques. To solution these problems, we have investigated the feasibility of achieving fully printable perovskite solar cells by the blade-coating technique. The blade-coating fabrication has been widely used to fabricate organic solar cells (OSCs) and is proven to be a simple, environment-friendly, and low-cost method for the solution-processed photovoltaic. Moreover, the film morphology control in the blade-coating method is much easier than the spray coating and roll-to-roll printing; high-quality photoactive layers with controllable thickness can be performed by using a precisely polished blade with low surface roughness and coating gap control between blade and coating substrate[1]. In order to fabricate perovskite devices with good efficiency, one of the main factors in printed electronic processing is the fabrication of thin films with controlled morphology, high surface coverage and minimum pinholes for high performance, printed thin film perovskite solar cells. Charge dissociation efficiency, charge transport and diffusion length of charge species are dependent on the crystallinity of the film [2]. We fabricated the printed perovskite solar cells with large area and flexible by the bar-coating. The morphology of printed film could be closely related with the condition of the bar-coating technique such as coating speed, concentration and amount of solution, drying condition, and suitable film thickness was also studied by using the optical analysis with SEM. Electrical performance of printed devices is gives hysteresis and efficiency distribution.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.275-279
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• 2016

This is a brief review on light trapping in Si based thin film solar cells with textured surfaces and transparent conducting oxide front electrodes. The light trapping scheme appears to be essential in improving device efficiency over 10%. As light absorption in a thin film solar cells is not sufficient, light trapping becomes necessary to be effectively implemented with a textured surface. Surface texturing helps in the light trapping, and thereby raises short circuit current density and its efficiency. Such a scheme can be adapted to single junction as well as tandem solar cell, amorphous or micro-crystalline devices. A tandem cell is expected to have superior performance in comparison to a single junction cell and random surface textures appears to be preferable to a periodic structures.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.10
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• pp.1702-1705
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• 2016

We propose a novel hydrogen-reduced p-type amorphous silicon oxide buffer layer between $TiO_2$ antireflection layer and p-type silicon window layer of silicon thin film solar cells. This new buffer layer can protect underlying the $TiO_2$ by suppressing hydrogen plasma, which could be made by excluding $H_2$ gas introduction during plasma deposition. Amorphous silicon oxide thin film solar cells with employing the new buffer layer exhibited better conversion efficiency (8.10 %) compared with the standard cell (7.88 %) without the buffer layer. This new buffer layer can be processed in the same p-chamber with in-situ mode before depositing main p-type amorphous silicon oxide window layer. Comparing with state-of-the-art buffer layer of AZO/p-nc-SiOx:H, our new buffer layer can be processed with cost-effective, much simple process based on similar device performances.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.86.2-86.2
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• 2015

Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cells have been fabricated using sputtered Cu/Sn/Zn metallic precursors on Mo coated sodalime glass substrate without using a toxic H2Se and H2S atmosphere. Cu/Sn/Zn metallic precursors with various thicknesses were prepared using DC magnetron sputtering process at room temperature. As-deposited metallic precursors were sulfo-selenized inside a graphite box containing S and Se pellets using rapid thermal processing furnace at various sulfur to selenium (S/Se) compositional ratio. Thin film solar cells were fabricated after sulfo-selenization process using a 65 nm CdS buffer, a 40 nm intrinsic ZnO, a 400 nm Al doped ZnO, and Al/Ni top metal contact. Effects of sulfur to selenium (S/Se) compositional ratio on the microstructure, crystallinity, electrical properties, and cell efficiencies have been studied using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscope, I-V measurement system, solar simulator, quantum efficiency measurement system, and time resolved photoluminescence spectrometer. Our fabricated Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cell shows the best conversion efficiency of 9.24 % (Voc : 454.6 mV, Jsc : 32.14 mA/cm2, FF : 63.29 %, and active area : 0.433 cm2), which is the highest efficiency among Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cells prepared using sputter deposited metallic precursors and without using a toxic H2Se gas. Details about other experimental results will be discussed during the presentation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.210-210
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• 2009

This paper describes the analysis results of an generated power with a inclined solar radiation. 2 different types of modules were employed to study the effect of the a inclined solar radiation on the generated power amount. As a result, it was confirmed that the generated power increased with the solar radiation and the mono crystal type cells generated higher power than the thin film type cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.72.1-72.1
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• 2010

Thin film a-Si solar cells deposited by PECVD have many advantages compared to the traditional crystalline Si solar cells. They do not require expensive Si wafer, the process temperature is relatively low, possibility of scaling up for mass production, etc. In order to produce thin film solar cells, understanding the relationship between the material characteristics and deposition conditions is important. It has been reported by many groups that the band gap of the a-Si material and the deposition rate has an linear relationship, when RF power is used to control both. However, when the process pressure is changed in order to control the deposition rate and the band gap, a diversion from the well known linear relationship occurs. Here, we explain this diversion by the deposition condition crossing different plasma regions in the Paschen curve with a simple model. This model will become a guide to which condition a-Si thin films must be fabricated in order to get a high quality film.