• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.505-509
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• 2016

We have investigated the characteristics of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film solar cell by inserting barrier layer. The conversion efficiency of a-Si thin-film solar cells on graphite substrate shows nearly zero because of the surface roughness of the graphite substrate. To enhance the performance of solar cells, the surface morphology of the back side were modified by changing the barrier layer on graphite. The surface roughness of graphite substrate with the barrier layer grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reduced from ~2 um to ~75 nm. In this study, the combination of the barrier layer on graphite substrate is important to increase solar cell efficiency. We achieved ~ 7.8% cell efficiency for an a-Si thin-film solar cell on graphite substrate with SiNx/SiOx stack barrier layer.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.77-79
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• 2009

Amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells, TCO/a-Si:H (p)/c-Si(n)/a-Si:H(n)/Al, are investigated. The influence of various parameters for the front structures was studied. We used thin (10 nm) a-Si:H(p) layers of amorphous hydrogenated silicon are deposited on top of a thick ($500{\mu}m$) crystalline c-Si wafer. This work deals with the influence of the a-Si:H(p) doping concentration on the solar cell performance is studied.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.152-156
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• 2004

We have studied the effective optical absorption power of Si solar cell with $SiO_2$-antireflection layer based on a mathematical modelling of AM(air mass)1 spectrum and Si refractive index in the wavelength range(0.4 $\mu\textrm{m}\leq$λ$\leq$$0.97\mu\textrm{m}$). The effective optical absorption power obtained from the theoretical calculation was 450 and 520 W/$\m^2$ for the Si solar cells with $SiO_2$-antireflection layer of 500$\AA$ and 1000$\AA$, respectively. The optimum thickness of $SiO_2$-antireflection layer showing the minimum reflection loss was about 1000$\AA$ in the computer simulation. Two kinds of Si solar cells named EBS(500$\AA$) and EBS(l000$\AA$) were fabricated to evaluate the effect of $SiO_2$-antireflection layer thickness on the optical absorption. The epitaxial base Si cell with $SiO_2$-antireflection layer of 1000$\AA$ [EBS(l000$\AA$)] showed the output power improvement of about 15% upon the EBS(500$\AA$) cell due to larger absorption of effective optical power under illumination of AM1, 1 sun.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.124-127
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• 2008

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) have been proposed as a substitute for overcoming the limitation of Si solar cells because DSC has the various applications using advantages of DSC such as low cost, transparency and flexibility. Although some people point out low efficiency of DSC as the important problem at present, general views say that actually cumulative power is not insufficient as compared with Si solar cell. Therefore, we analyzed the characteristics of both cells according to the change of incident angle in this study. The insensibility about the incident angle has more developable time. Finally, DSC is able to fill a shortage of power caused from low efficiency of DSC for same time by developing during impossible time to develop in Si solar cell. As a result, DSC has 75% and 210% cumulative power of Si solar cell in summer and winter under the standard sunshine duration.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.844-849
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• 2011

Two kind of Ag-pastes were prepared for integrating the bulk Si solar cell. One is the Ag-paste with Pb-based glass frit and the other is that with Bi-based glass frit. The pastes were the mixture of 84 wt% Ag, 2 wt% glass frit, 11 wt% solvent of buthyl cabitol acetate, and 2 wt% additives. After fabricating the Ag-pastes, they was coated on a $SiN_x$/n+/p- stacks of a commercial mono-Si solar cell. The solar cell efficiency was 17.6% in the case of the Pb-based Ag-paste. However that was 16.2% in the solar cell integrated with the Bi-based Ag-paste. The lower performance in Bi-based Ag-paste was caused by the higher series resistance and the lower shunt resistance in comparison with the Pb-based Ag-paste.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.321-326
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• 2016

Minimizing the carrier recombination and electrical loss through surface passivation is required for high efficiency c-Si solar cell. Usually, $SiN_X$, $SiO_X$, $SiON_X$ and $AlO_X$ layers are used as passivation layer in solar cell application. Silicon oxide layer is one of the good passivation layer in Si based solar cell application. It has good selective carrier, low interface state density, good thermal stability and tunneling effect. Recently tunneling based passivation layer is used for high efficiency Si solar cell such as HIT, TOPCon and TRIEX structure. In this paper, we focused on silicon oxide grown by various the method (thermal, wet-chemical, plasma) and passivation effect in c-Si solar cell.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.431-432
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• 2008

HIT Solar Cell은 단결정 실리콘 웨이퍼가 초박막 amorphos 실리콘 층으로 싸여있는 구조이다. HIT Solar Cell에서 amorphos 실리콘의 두께와 도핑 농도는 태양전지의 효율을 결정하는 매우 중요한 요인이다. 본 논문에서는 높은 효율을 갖는 태양전지 설계를 위해 AFORS HET 프로그램을 이용하여 TCO_a-Si:H(p)_a-Si:H(i)_c-Si(n)_Al 구조를 설계했다. 후에 a-Si:H(p)의 두께와 a-Si:H(i) 의 두께를 가변하며 효율을 측정하였고, p-i-n 구조에서 n+ 층을 추가함에 따라 변하는 효율을 측정하였다. 최적화 한 결과 $V_{oc}$ = 693mV, $J_{sc}$ = 3891mA/$cm^{-2}$, FF = 8363%, $E_{ff}$ = 22.55% 의 고효율을 얻었다.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.616-621
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• 2009

Reduction of optical losses in crystalline silicon solar cells by surface modification is one of the most important issues of silicon photovoltaics. Porous Si layers on the front surface of textured Si substrates have been investigated with the aim of improving the optical losses of the solar cells, because an anti-reflection coating(ARC) and a surface passivation can be obtained simultaneously in one process. We have demonstrated the feasibility of a very efficient porous Si ARC layer, prepared by a simple, cost effective, electrochemical etching method. Silicon p-type CZ (100) oriented wafers were textured by anisotropic etching in sodium carbonate solution. Then, the porous Si layers were formed by electrochemical etching in HF solutions. After that, the properties of porous Si in terms of morphology, structure and reflectance are summarized. The structure of porous Si layers was investigated with SEM. The formation of a nanoporous Si layer about 100nm thick on the textured silicon wafer result in a reflectance lower than 5% in the wavelength region from 500 to 900nm. Such a surface modification allows improving the Si solar cell characteristics. An efficiency of 13.4% is achieved on a monocrystalline silicon solar cell using the electrochemical technique.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.31-38
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• 2018

Multijunction solar cells present a practical solution towards a better photovoltaic conversion for a wider spectral range. In this review, we compare different types of multi-ijunction solar cell. First, we introduce thin film multijunction solar cell include to the thin film silicon, III-V material and chalcopyrite material. Until now the maximum reported power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of solar cells having different component sub-cells are 14.0% (thin film silicon), 46% (III-V material), 4.4% (chalcopyrite material) respectively. We then discuss the development of multijunction solar cell in which c-Si is used as bottom sub-cell while III-V material, thin film silicon, chalcopyrite material or perovskite material is used as top sub-cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.204-205
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• 2011

In thin film silicon solar cells, p-i-n structure is adopted instead of p/n junction structure as in wafer-based Si solar cells. PECVD is a most widely used thin film deposition process for a-Si:H or ${\mu}c$-Si:H solar cells. For best performance of thin film silicon solar cell, the dopant profiles at p/i and i/n interfaces need to be as sharp as possible. The sharpness of dopant profiles can easily achieved when using multi-chamber PECVD equipment, in which each layer is deposited in separate chamber. However, in a single-chamber PECVD system, doped and intrinsic layers are deposited in one plasma chamber, which inevitably impedes sharp dopant profiles at the interfaces due to the contamination from previous deposition process. The cross-contamination between layers is a serious drawback of a single-chamber PECVD system in spite of the advantage of lower initial investment cost for the equipment. In order to resolve the cross-contamination problem in single-chamber PECVD systems, flushing method of the chamber with NH3 gas or water vapor after doped layer deposition process has been used. In this study, a new plasma process to solve the cross-contamination problem in a single-chamber PECVD system was suggested. A single-chamber VHF-PECVD system was used for superstrate type p-i-n a-Si:H solar cell manufacturing on Asahi-type U FTO glass. A 80 MHz and 20 watts of pulsed RF power was applied to the parallel plate RF cathode at the frequency of 10 kHz and 80% duty ratio. A mixture gas of Ar, H2 and SiH4 was used for i-layer deposition and the deposition pressure was 0.4 Torr. For p and n layer deposition, B2H6 and PH3 was used as doping gas, respectively. The deposition temperature was $250^{\circ}C$ and the total p-i-n layer thickness was about $3500{\AA}$. In order to remove the deposited B inside of the vacuum chamber during p-layer deposition, a high pulsed RF power of about 80 W was applied right after p-layer deposition without SiH4 gas, which is followed by i-layer and n-layer deposition. Finally, Ag was deposited as top electrode. The best initial solar cell efficiency of 9.5 % for test cell area of 0.2 $cm^2$ could be achieved by applying the in-situ plasma cleaning method. The dependence on RF power and treatment time was investigated along with the SIMS analysis of the p-i interface for boron profiles.