• 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.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 1995.05a
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• pp.172-176
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• 1995

Schemes to trap weakly absorbed light into the cell have played an important role in improving the efficiency of both amorphous and crystlline silicon solar cells. One class of scheme relies on randomizing the direction of light within the cell by use of Lambertian(diffuse)surfaces. A second class of scheme relies on the use fo well defined geometrical features to control the direction of light wihin the cell, Widly used geometrical features in crystalline silicon solar cells are the square based pyramids and V-shaped grooves formed in (100) orientated surfaces by intersecting(III) crystallographic planes exposed by anisotropic etching. 18.5% conversion efficiency of Buried Contact Solar Cell with pyramidally textured surface has been achieved. 18.5% efficiency of silicon solar cell is one the highest record in the world The efficieny of cell without textured surface was 16.6%, When adapting textured surface to the Cell, the efficiency has been improved over 12%.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2013

The current solar cell industry is experiencing a temporary plateau due to a sluggish economy and oversupply. It is expected that the solar industry can see similar growth to that of the recent past by overcoming the current situation, as there is growing demand globally for solar energy. The current situation led to restructuring of the world's solar industry, and domestic firms will need to have competitiveness through strategic approaches and proprietary technology to survive in the global solar market. Crystalline and amorphous silicon based solar cells have led the solar industry and occupied half or more of the market thus far. They will do so in the future PV market as well by playing a pivotal role in the solar industry. In this paper, the current status and prospects of silicon based solar cells, from materials to comprehensive and high efficiency technology that can emerge in the future, are discussed.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.39-43
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• 2017

It was confirmed that the silicon thin films fabricated on the p-Si (100) substrates by using DIPAS (DiIsoPropylAminoSilane) and TDMA-Sb (Tris-DiMethylAminoAntimony) sources by RPCVD method were amorphous and n-type silicon. The fabricated amorphous n-type silicon films had electron carrier concentrations and electron mobilities ranged from $6.83{\times}10^{18}cm^{-3}$ to $1.27{\times}10^{19}cm^{-3}$ and from 62 to $89cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, respectively. The ideality factor of the pn junction diode fabricated on the p-Si (100) substrate was about 1.19 and the efficiency of the fabricated pn solar cell was 10.87%.

• Solar Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.73-76
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• 1988

Thick films based on the mature crystalline silicon technology are expected to exhibit eversmaller cost reduction. The thin-film-based technology is, however, expected to exhibit a much sharper drop in cost as it develops. In this report, technology and recent R & D of thin film solar cell, such as amorphous silicon, cadnium telluride, copper indium diselenide and gallium arsenide, are described. Perspectives of world photovoltaic market and solar cell price are also described.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.82-82
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• 2015

Industrial crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells with using a screen printing technology share the global market over 90% and they will continue to be the same for at least the next decade. It seems that the $2^{nd}$ generation and the $3^{rd}$ generation technologies have not yet demonstrated competitiveness in terms of performance and cost. In 2014, new world record efficiency 25.6% (Area-$143.7cm^2$, Voc-0.740V, $Jsc-41.8mA/cm^2$, FF-0.827) was announced from Panasonic and its cell structure is Back Contact $HIT^*$ c-Si solar cell. Here, amorphous silicon passivated contacts were newly applied to back contact solar cell. On the other hand, 24.9% $TOPCon^{**}$ cell was announced from Fraunhofer ISE and its key technology is an excellent passivation quality applying tunnel oxide (<2 nm) between metal and silicon or emitter and base. As a result, to realize high efficiency, high functional technologies are quite required to overcome a theoretical limitation of c-Si solar cell efficiency. In this presentation, Si solar cell technology summarized in the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics ($^{***}ITRPV$ 2014) is introduced, and the present status of R&D associated with various c-Si solar cell technologies will be reviewed. In addition, national R&D projects of c-Si solar cells to be performed by Korea University are shown briefly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.257.2-257.2
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• 2015

In this paper, we report on the 10.33% efficient thin film/bulk tandem solar cells with the top cell made of amorphous silicon thin film and p-type bulk crystalline silicon bottom cell. The tunneling junction layers were used the doped nanocrystalline Si layers. It has to allow an ohmic and low resistive connection. For player and n-layer, crystalline volume fraction is ~86%, ~88% and dark conductivity is $3.28{\times}10-2S/cm$, $3.03{\times}10-1S/cm$, respectively. Optimization of the tunneling junction results in fill factor of 66.16 % and open circuit voltage of 1.39 V. The open circuit voltage was closed to the sum of those of the sub-cells. This tandem structure could enable the effective development of a new concept of high-efficiency and low cost cells.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.43-48
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• 2018

The traditional silicon heterojunction solar cells consist of intrinsic amorphous silicon to prevent recombination of the silicon surface and doped amorphous silicon to transport the photo-generated electrons and holes to the electrode. Back contact solar cells with silicon heterojunction exhibit very high open-circuit voltages, but the complexity of the process due to form the emitter and base at the backside must be addressed. In order to solve this problem, the structure, manufacturing method, and new materials enabling the carrier selective contact (CSC) solar cell capable of achieving high efficiency without using a complicated structure have recently been actively developed. CSC solar cells minimize carrier recombination on metal contacts and effectively transfer charge. The CSC structure allows very low levels of recombination current (eg, Jo < 9fA/cm2), thereby achieves high open-circuit voltage and high efficiency. This paper summarizes the core technology of CSC solar cell, which has been spotlighted as the next generation technology, and is aiming to speed up the research and development in this field.

• Solar Energy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 1987

This paper presents a comprehensive computer simulation of hydrogenated amorphous p-i-n silicon solar cells. The physical mechanism governing solar cell operation has been modeled and solved numerically by Runge-Kutta-Gill method. Effects of gap state density, dopant impurity, diffusion length and interface recombination velocity on solar cell performance are investigated. Numerical results show that the electric field in i-region is not uniform but depends strongly on voltage and position. A rather poor fill factor may be due to the electric field variation and short diffusion length. It is found out that the life time should be improved in order to increase a fill factor and a conversion efficiency.