• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2004

Zinc sulfide is a semiconductor with wide band gap and high refractive index and hence promising material to be used as ARC on commercial silicon solar cells. Uniform deposition of zinc sulfide (ZnS) by using chemical bath deposition (CBD) method over a large area of silicon surface is an emerging field of research because ZnS film can be used as a low cost antireflection coating (ARC). The main problem of the CBD bath process is the huge amount of precipitation that occurs during heterogeneous reaction leading to hamper the rate of deposition as well as uniformity and chemical stoichiometry of deposited film. Molar concentration of thiorea plays an important role in varying the percentage of reflectance and refractive index of as-deposited CBD ZnS film. Desirable rate of film deposition (19.6 ${\AA}$ / min), film uniformity (Std. dev. < 1.8), high value of refractive index (2.35), low reflectance (0.655) have been achieved with proper optimization of ZnS bath. Decrease in refractive index of CBD ZnS film due to high temperature treatment in air ambiance has been pointed out in this paper. Solar cells of conversion efficiency 13.8 ％ have been successfully achieved with a large area (103 mm ${\times}$ 103 mm) mono-crystalline silicon wafers by using CBD ZnS antireflection coating in this modified approach.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.5172-5177
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• 2011

This paper presents a reflection coating design scheme in the thin-film silicon solar cell. The antireflection(high reflection) coating skill is needed in the front(back) panel of the thin-film solar cell to improve an efficiency of light absorbing. In the single structure a reflectivity is changed according to the thickness of coating for antireflection scheme and its minimum value can be obtained by controlling thickness of coating. In the symmetric multi layer structure low reflectivity can be obtained in the wide wavelength range. And we also find that high reflectivity can be obtained through multi layer structure, which has alternate layers of high and low material, for high reflection scheme in the back panel.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4139-4145
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• 2012

This paper shows an antireflection coating design skill for utilization the thin-film silicon solar cell in the future. The reflectivity of each index profile previously suggested as linear, cubic and quintic function has been calculated and compared. Each index profile is applied to the antireflection coating consisting of 6 layers with 180nm thickness. Also we suggest the graded index profile and compare it's reflectivity to the linear, cubic and quintic's ones. As a results we find the reflectivity generally decreases as the order goes to higher. However the reflectivity in the graded index profile shows the higher(lower) value than ones in the linear, cubic and quintic especially in the shorter(longer) wavelength range from 500 nm to below 700 nm(above 700 nm to 800 nm). Therefore we find that the graded index profile structure could be applied for the better antireflection coating design scheme especially for optical device and optical filter in the range of from deep red to infrared.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.259-265
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• 1995

Antireflection coatings on optical lenses commertially available in domestic market are optically analyzed. Transmission spectra and reflection spectra are collected using spectrophotometers. The apparent absorption spectra around the absorption band edge are dominated by the substrate absorption. The reflection spectra and the apparent absorption spectra at visible region between 400nm and 700nm show very strong correlation to each other except a couple samples. The discrepency observed in the latters are due to an increased absorption in visible region by the substrate, which is negative effect of these samples. An antireflection coating consisted of $SiO_2/TiO_2/SiO_2/ZrO_2/Cr$ is made on c-Si substrate for spectroscopic ellispometry analysis. A film-by-film coating is accomplished and between each film deposition, ex-situ spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements are made. The analysis of the spectroscopic ellipsometry data reveals that the average film densities of $ZrO_2$ and $TiO_2$ reach only 80% of their respective packing densities and thick films are inhomogeneous along film growth direction. Discussions are made toward in-situ, real-time monitoring of the film growth so that a real-time feedback is possible to achieve a post-correction to minor deviations occured in the previous step. step.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.33-36
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• 2010

$MgF_2$ is a current material used for optical applications in the ultraviolet and deep ultraviolet range. Process variables for manufacturing $MgF_2$ thin film were established in order to clarify the optimum conditions for the growth of the thin film, dependant upon the process conditions, and then by changing a number of the vapor deposition conditions, substrate temperatures, and heat treatment conditions, the structural and optical characteristics were measured. Then, optimum process variables were thus derived. Nevertheless, modern applications still require improvement in the optical and structural quality of the deposited layers. In the present work, in order to understand the composition and microstructure of $MgF_2$, single layers grown on a slide glass substrate using an Electron beam Evaporator (KV-660), were analyzed and compared. The surface substrate temperature, having an effect on the quality of the thin film, was changed from $200^{\circ}C$ to $350^{\circ}C$ at intervals of $50^{\circ}C$. The heat treatment temperature, which also has an effect on the thin film, was changed from $200^{\circ}C$ to $400^{\circ}C$ at intervals of $50^{\circ}C$. The physical properties of the thin film were investigated at various fabrication conditions, such as the substrate temperature, the heat treatment temperature, and the heat treatment time, by X-ray diffraction, and field emission-scanning electron microscopy.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.565-569
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• 2006

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD) is a well established technique for the deposition of hydrogenated film of silicon nitride (SiNx:H), which is commonly used as an antireflection coating as well as passivating layer in crystalline silicon solar cell. PECVD-SiNx:H films were investigated by varying the deposition and annealing conditions to optimize for the application in silicon solar cells. By varying the gas ratio (ammonia to silane), the silicon nitride films of refractive indices 1.85 - 2.45 were obtained. The film deposited at $450^{\circ}C$ showed the best carrier lifetime through the film deposition rate was not encouraging. The film deposited with the gas ratio of 0.57 showed the best carrier lifetime after annealing at a temperature of $800^{\circ}C$. The single crystalline silicon solar cells fabricated in conventional industrial production line applying the optimized film deposition and annealing conditions on large area substrate of size $125mm{\times}125mm$ (pseudo square) was found to have the conversion efficiencies as high as 17.05 %. Low cost and high efficiency silicon solar cells fabrication sequence has also been explained in this paper.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2016

Silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are generally used as antireflection layers and passivation layers on solar cells. In this study, we investigated the properties of silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by PECVD. The passivation properties of $SiN_x:H$ are focused on by making the antireflection properties identical. To make equivalent optical properties of silicon nitride films, the refractive index and thickness of the films are fixed at 2.0 and 90 nm, respectively. This limit makes it easier to evaluate silicon nitride film as a passivation layer in realistic application situations. Next, the effects of the mixture ratio of the process gases with silane ($SiH_4$) and ammonia ($NH_3$) on the passivation qualities of silicon nitride film are evaluated. The absorption coefficient of each film was evaluated by spectrometric ellipsometry, the minority carrier lifetimes were evaluated by quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC) measurement. The optical properties were obtained using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. The interface properties were determined by capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement and the film components were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy detection (RBS) - elastic recoil detection (ERD). In hydrogen passivation, gas ratios of 1:1 and 1:3 show the best surface passivation property among the samples.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.07a
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• pp.1039-1042
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• 2001

A method for designing antireflection (AR) and antistatic (AS) films by the use of conducting polymer as an electrically conductive transparent layer is proposed. The conducting AR film is composed of four-layer with alternating high and low refractive index layer: silicon dioxide (n=1.44) and titanium dioxide (n=2.02) prepared at low temperature by sol-gel method are used as the low and high refractive index layer, respectively. The 3,4-polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) which has the sheet resistance of 10$^4$$\Omega$/$\square$ is used as a conductive layer. Optical constant of ARAS film was measured by the spectroscopic ellipsometer and from the measured optical constants the spectral properties such as reflectance and transmittance were simulated in the visible region. The reflectance of ARAS films on glass substrate was below 0.8 %R and the transmittance was higher than 95 % in the visible wavelength (400-700 nm). The measured AR spectral properties was very similar to its simulated results.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1998.07d
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• pp.1340-1342
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• 1998

The diamond-like carbon(DLC) film, as an antireflection layer, is coated on a commerically used Ge window. DLC films are deposited by using an rf(13.56 MHz) plasma CVD. The optimal value of thickness and refractive index of DLC layer has been determined from the computer simulation. IR-transmittances of DLC-coated Ge windows are estimated by measuring FTIR spectra in the wavelength range of$ 2.5{\sim}25{\mu}m$. By coating the DLC film on one side of the Ge window, the transmittance measured at a wavelength of $10{\mu}m$ is about 60 %, while that of the bare Ge is lower than 50 %. Also, a higher transmittance up to about 90 % is obtained by coating the DLC film on both sides of the window. It may be suggested that the further improvement of the IR-transmittance can be achieved by more precisely controlling the thickness and the refractive index of DLC layer and also by adopting various muliti-layer antireflection structures.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.373-378
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• 2008

A simple chemical fixation method for the fabrication of layer-by-layer (LbL) polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) has been developed to create a large area, highly uniform film for various applications. PEM of weak poly-electrolytes, i.e., polyallylamine hydrogen chloride (PAH) and poly(acrylic acid)(PAA), was assembled on polymer substrates such as poly(methyl methacrylate)(PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC). In the case of a weak polyelectrolyte, the fabricated thin film thickness of the polyelectrolyte multilayers was strongly dependent on the pH of the processing solution, which enabled the film thickness or optical properties to be controlled. On the other hand, the environmental stability for device application was poor. In this study, we utilized the chemical fixation method using glutaraldehyde (GA)-amine reaction in order to stabilize the polyelectrolyte multilayers. By simple treatment of GA on the PEM film, the inherent morphology was fixed and the adhesion and mechanical strength were improved. Both surface tension and FT-IR measurements supported the chemical cross-linking reaction. The surface property of the polyelectrolyte films was altered and converted from hydrophilic to hydrophobic by chemical modification. The possible application to antireflection coating on PMMA and PC was demonstrated.