• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.492-492
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• 2014

On account of the good conductivity and optical properties, TCO is generally used in silicon heterojunction solar cell since the emitter material, hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), of the solar cell has low conductivity compare to the emitter of crystalline silicon solar cell. However, the work function mismatch between TCO layer and emitter leads to band-offset and interfere the injection of photo-generated carriers. In this study, work function engineering of TCO by oxygen reactive sputtering method was carried out to identify the trend of band-offset change. The open circuit voltage and short circuit current are noticeably changed by work function that effected from variation of oxygen ratio.

• 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.

• 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.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.17-22
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• 2011

There are some degradation factors for amorphous silicon solar cells. Light inducing is one of the factor that explained by Staebler-Wronski effect. Also, hotspot heating could be the reason that makes amorphous silicon solar cell degrade. Hotspot heating is occurred when a solar cell is shaded so this work is investigated into two types of shading condition and how these affect to solar cell differently. Reduced irradiance for whole cell and partially shaded as 0($W/m^2$) while the other part of cell is soaking as 1000($W/m^2$) of irradiance are two conditions that are experimented. The two types of shading show different characteristics of degradations. The result shows that partially shaded cell dropped maximum powerless and slower. Also sudden drop points have shown that should be concerned to decide the number of cells for a string. Otherwise, the current through a shaded cell might flow more than cell's capability. It makes cell and module damaged. This work would help to manufacture modules.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.939-942
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• 2016

One of the most important characteristic curves of a solar cell is its current density-voltage (J-V) curve under AM1.5G insolation. Solar cell can be considered as a semiconductor diode, so a diode equivalent model was used to estimate its parameters from the J-V curve by numerical simulation. Active layer plays an important role in operation of a solar cell. We investigated the effect thicknesses and defect densities (N_d) of the active layer on the J-V curve. When the active layer thickness was varied (for N_d = 8×10¹⁷ cm^-3) from 800 nm to 100 nm, the reverse saturation current density (J_o) changed from 3.56×10^-5 A/cm² to 9.62×10^-11 A/cm² and its ideality factor (n) changed from 5.28 to 2.02. For a reduced defect density (N_d = 4×10¹⁵ cm^-3), the n remained within 1.45≤n≤1.92 for the same thickness range. A small increase in shunt resistance and almost no change in series resistance were observed in these cells. The low reverse saturation current density (J_o = 9.62×10^-11 A/cm²) and diode ideality factor (n = 2.02 or 1.45) were observed for amorphous silicon based solar cell with 100 nm thick active 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.115-118
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• 2017

Highly photosensitive and wide bandgap amorphous silicon oxide (a-$SiO_x$:H) films were developed at low temperature ranges ($100{\sim}150^{\circ}C$) with employing plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition by optimizing $H_2/SiH_4$ gas ratio and $CO_2$ flow. Photosensitivity more than $10^5$ and wide bandgap (1.81~1.85 eV) properties were used for making the a-$SiO_x$:H thin film solar cells, which exhibited a high open circuit voltage of 0.987 V at the substrate temperature of $100^{\circ}C$. In addition, a power conversion efficiency of 6.87% for the cell could be improved up to 7.77% by employing a new n-type nc-$SiO_x$:H/ZnO:Al/Ag triple back-reflector that offers better short circuit currents in the thin film photovoltaic devices.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2016

Among the various types of solar cells, silicon based two terminal tandem solar cell is one of the most popular one. It is designed to split the absorption of incident AM1.5 solar radiation among two of its component cells, thereby widening the wavelength range of external quantum efficiency (EQE) spectra of the device, in comparison to that of a single junction solar cell. In order to improve the EQE spectra further and raise short circuit current density ($J_{sc}$) an optimization of the tradeoff between the top and bottom cell is needed. In an optimized cell structure, the $J_{sc}$ and hence efficiency of the device can further be enhanced with the help of light trapping scheme. This can be achieved by texturing front and back surface as well as a back reflector of the device. In this brief review we highlight the development of light trapping in the silicon based tandem solar cell.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.128.1-128.1
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• 2011

In amorphous silicon and crystalline silicon(a-Si:H/c-Si) heterojuction solar cells, intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon(a-Si:H) films play an important role to passivate the crystalline silicon wafer surfaces. We have studied the correlation between the surface passivation quality and nature of the Si-H bonding at the a-Si:H/c-Si interface. The samples were obtained by VHF-CVD under different deposition conditions. The passivation quality and analysis of all structures studied was performed by means of quasi steady state photoconductance(QSSPC) methods and fourier transform infrared spectrometer(FTIR) measurements respectively.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.70-73
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• 2017

We investigated n-i-p type single junction hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide solar cells. These cells were without front surface texture or back reflector. Maximum power point efficiency of these cells showed that an optimized device structure is needed to get the best device output. This depends on the thickness and defect density ($N_d$) of the active layer. A typical 10% photovoltaic device conversion efficiency was obtained with a $N_d=8.86{\times}10^{15}cm^{-3}$ defect density and 630 nm active layer thickness. Our investigation suggests a correlation between defect density and active layer thickness to device efficiency. We found that amorphous silicon solar cell efficiency can be improved to well above 10%.