• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.230-230
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• 2013

In amorphous or microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cells, p-i-n structure is used instead of p/n junction structure as in wafer-based Si solar cells. Hence, these p-i-n structured solar cells inevitably consist of many interfaces and the cell efficiency critically depends on the effective control of these interfaces. In this study, in-situ plasma treatment process of the interfaces was developed to improve the efficiency of a-Si:H solar cell. The p-i-n cell was deposited using a single-chamber VHF-PECVD system, which was driven by a pulsed-RF generator at 80 MHz. In order to solve the cross-contamination problem of p-i layer, high RF power was applied without supplying SiH4 gas after p-layer deposition, which effectively cleaned B contamination inside chamber wall from p-layer deposition. In addition to the p-i interface control, various interface control techniques such as thin layer of TiO2 deposition to prevent H2 plasma reduction of FTO layer, multiple applications of thin i-layer deposition and H2 plasma treatment, H2 plasma treatment of i-layer prior to n-layer deposition, etc. were developed. In order to reduce the reflection at the air-glass interface, anti-reflective SiO2 coating was also adopted. The initial solar cell efficiency over 11% could be achieved for test cell area of 0.2 $cm^2$.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.28-32
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• 2008

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon(${\mu}c$-Si:H) films were prepared using inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition(ICP-CVD) method, electrical and optical properties of these films were studied as a function of silane concentration. And then, effect of $PH_3\;and\;B_2H_6$ addition on their electrical properties was also investigated for solar cell application. Characterization of these films from X-ray diffraction revealed that the conductive film exists in microcrystalline phase embedded in an amorphous network. At $PH_3/SiH_4$ gas ratio of $0.9{\times}10^{-3}$, dark conductivity has a maximum value of ${\sim}18.5S/cm$ and optical bandgap also a maximum value of ${\sim}2.39eV$. Boron-doped ${\mu}c$-Si:H films, satisfied with p-layer of solar cell, could be obtained at ${\sim}10^{-2}\;of\;B_2H_6/SiH_4$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.29A no.3
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• pp.66-71
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• 1992

We fabricated highly stable a-Si:H solar cell using low band gap intrinsic layer fabricated by RP-CVD. We obtained a-Si:H with optical band gap of less than 1.65 eV with deposition rate of 0.18 $\AA$/sec, and used this material as bottom i-layer of a-Si:H double stacked solar cells. We have succeeded in the fabrication of very stable a-Si:H double stacked solar cell of which the conversion efficiency is about 9% and the degradation is less than 4% after light illumination for 100h under 350mW/cm$^{2}$.

• Solar Energy
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.68-73
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• 1988

In the glass/TCO/p-i-n a-Si/Al type of amorphous silicon solar cell, the effects on solar cell efficiency and metastability for the various kinds of TCO analyzed by SAM and ESCA, which was used to measure the diffusion profiles of In and Sn and the Fermi energy shifts in the TCO/p interface respectively. Indium which diffused into a-Si p-layer did not have any significant effects on the Fermi level shift of p-layer when the content of $B_2H_6/SiH_4$ in p-layer was at 1 gas%. The cell fabricated on $SnO_2$ turned out to have the best cell photovoltaic characteristics. ITO fabricated by electron beam deposition system, which was shown to have the greatest rate of diffusion of Indium in ITO/p interface produced the worst metastability among the cells tested.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.31-36
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• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film(a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides(TCO) in order to see the effect of TCO/p-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage VOC than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer(${\mu}c-Si:H$) between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{OC}$ of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{OC}$ of 994mV while keeping fill factor(72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{SC}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{OC}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.158-161
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• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film (a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides (TCO) In order to see the effect of TCO/P-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage $V_{oc}$ than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer $({\mu}c-Si:H)$ between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{oc}$, of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{oc}$, of 994mv while keeping fill factor (72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{sc}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{oc}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.964-967
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• 2002

The effectiveness of silicon nitride SiNx surface passivation is investigated and quantified. This study adopted single-layer antireflection (SLAR) coating of SiNx for efficiency improvement of solar cell. The silicon nitride films were deposited by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) in planar coil reactor. The process gases used were pure ammonia and a mixture of silane and helium. The thickness and the refractive index on the films were measured by ellipsometry and chemical bonds were determined by using an FT-IR equipment. This films obtained were analyzed in term of hydrogen content, refractive index for gas flow ratio $(NH_3/SiH_4)$, and efficiency of solar cell. The polycrystalline silicon solar cells passivated by silicon nitride shows efficiency above 12.8%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.426.1-426.1
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• 2016

We report high work function Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) films as insertion layer as a function of O2 flow rate between transparent conducting oxides (TCO) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiOx:H) layer to improve open circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) for high efficiency thin film solar cell. However, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells exhibit poor fill factors due to a Schottky barrier like impedance at the interface between a-SiOx:H windows and TCO. The impedance is caused by an increasing mismatch between the work function of TCO and that of p-type a-SiOx:H. In this study, we report on the silicon thin film solar cell by using as insertion layer of O2 reactive AZO films between TCO and p-type a-SiOx:H. Significant efficiency enhancement was demonstrated by using high work-function layers (4.95 eV at O2=2 sccm) for engineering the work function at the key interfaces to raise FF as well as Voc. Therefore, we can be obtained the conversion efficiency of 7 % at 13mA/cm2 of the current density (Jsc) and 63.35 % of FF.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.491.2-491.2
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• 2014

Generally, silicon heterojunction solar cell has intrinsic and n-type of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) as passivation layer and BSF layer. In this study, antimony, novel material, deposited on back side of the heterojunction solar cell as passivation and BSF layer to substitute the a-Si:H and the characteristics of the solar cell such electrical properties and optical properties were analyzed. And SIMS analysis was carried out to obtain the depth profile of the BSF layer which was deposited by laser annealing process.