• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.45-49
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• 2015

In the past few decade's researchers, scientists, engineers of photovoltaic (PV) industry are working towards low cost high efficiency Si solar cells. Over the last decade the interest in back contact solar cell has been acquiring as well as a gradual introduction to industrial applications is increasing. As an alternative to conventional solar cells with a front and rear contact, the back-contact cells has remained a research topic. The aim of this work is to present a comprehensive summary of results incurred in the back contact back junction solar cells such as interdigitated back-contact (IBC), emitter wrap-through (EWT) and metallization wrap-through (MWT) over the years.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.320-320
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• 2010

최근 결정질 태양전지에 관한 연구 중, 후면 공정에 대한 연구가 중요시 되고 있으며 local back contact 구조는 후면 공정에 관한 연구 중 가장 많은 연구가 이루어지고 있는 분야이다. 특히 local back contact이 형성하는 BSF의 폭, 깊이, 간격은 태양전지의 전기적 특성 및 광학적 특성을 결정짓는 결정적인 요인중 하나이다. 하지만 local back contact 형성을 위한 실험에는 많은 시간과 노력이 필요하며, 많은 시행착오를 겪어야 한다. 따라서 2차원 modeling 함수를 통한 TCAD simulation으로 실험하기 이전에 local back contact구조의 태양전지를 만들고 SR로 각 파장별 양자효율의 변화와 전기적 특성을 분석하여 최적화된 local back contact 구조를 제시할 것이다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.318.2-318.2
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• 2014

The high contact resistance is still one of the major issues to be resolved in CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells. CdTe/Metal Schottky contact induced a high contact resistance in CdS/CdTe solar cells. It has been reported that the work function of CdTe thin film is more than 5.7 eV. There has not been a suitable back contact metal, because CdTe thin film has a high work function. In a few decades, some buffer layer was reported to improve a back contact problem. Buffer layers which are Te, $Sb_2Te_3$, $Cu_2Te$, ZnTe:Cu and so on was inserted between CdTe and metal electrode. A formed buffer layers made a tunnel junction. Hole carriers which was excited in CdTe film by light absorption was transported from CdTe to back metal electrode. In this report, we reported the variation of solar cell performance with different buffer layer at the back contact of CdTe thin film solar cell.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.280-280
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• 2010

태양전지의 효율을 증가시키는 방법에는 표면 패시베이션, 접촉면적의 가변, back contact의 두께 가변 등이 있다. 특히, back contact 두께의 가변을 통하여 open circuit voltage의 감소를 최소화 할 수 있을 것이라고 전망 되고 있다. open circuit voltage 은 회로가 개방된 상태로, 무한대의 임피던스가 걸린 상태에서 빛을 받았을 때 태양전지의 양단에 전위차가 형성된다. 본 연구에서는 back contact 두께 가변에 따른, open circuit voltage의 변화를 확인하고 분석하는 것에 그 일차적인 초점을 두었다. 또한, open circuit voltage 뿐만 아니라, short circuit current density, fill factor, series resistance 등의 분석을 하였으며, efficiency를 계산하여 back contact 두께의 가변에 따른 소자 특성의 변화 분석을 통하여 최적화된 back contact위 두께를 연구하였다. 접촉면적에 따른 소자의 성능 변화는 후면 $SiN_X$ 70nm가 open circuit voltage를 15mV ~ 20mV 감소시키는 것을 확인 할 수 있었다. 그 이유는 $SiN_X$가 너무 두꺼우면 BSF 덜 형성되기 때문이다. 최종적으로 $SiN_X$ 두께를 얇게하면 open circuit voltage 의 감소를 최소화 할 수 있을 것이라는 판단을 할 수 있다. 이에, back contact인 $SiN_X$ 두께 가변에 따른 open circuit voltage의 변화를 확인하였다. $SiN_X$ 두께가 증가함에 따라, Positive charges 와 Hydrogen 함유량이 증가하며, 이에 BSF 두께 감소하였다. 또한, $SiN_X$ 두께가 감소함에 따라 Doping barrier로서 역할을 못하게 되어 후면에 n+층 형성되어 open circuit voltage가 급격히 하락하였다. 본 연구에서는 back contact인 $SiN_X$ 두께를 10nm, 30nm, 50nm, 80nm 로 가변하며 실험을 진행하였다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.43.1-43.1
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• 2010

In the crystalline silicon solar cells, the full area aluminum_back surface field(BSF) is routinely achieved through the screen-printing of aluminum paste and rapid firing. It is widely used in the industrial solar cell because of the simple and cost-effective process to suppress the overall recombination at the back surface. However, it still has limitations such as the relatively higher recombination rate and the low-to-moderate reflectance. In addition, it is difficult to apply it to thinner substrate due to wafer bowing. In the recent years, the dielectric back-passivated cell with local back contacts has been developed and implemented to overcome its disadvantages. Although it is successful to gain a lower value of surface recombination velocity(SRV), the series resistance($R_{series}$) becomes even more important than the conventional solar cell. That is, it is a trade off relationship between the SRV and the $R_{series}$ as a function of the contact size, the contact spacing and the geometry of the opening. Therefore it is essential to find the best compromise between them for the high efficiency solar cell. We have investigated the optimal design for the local back contact by using PC1D simulation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.394-394
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• 2011

최근 태양전지의 후면에서 통상적으로 사용되는 Al을 이용한 후면의 BSF형성과 그에 관한 연구보다 계면의 recombination을 줄이기 위하여 passivation 특성이 좋은 층을 후면에 형성하고 국부적으로 BSF를 형성하는 back contact을 형성하여 특성을 향상시키는 연구가 많이 이루어지고 있다. 본 연구는 이러한 local back contact을 boron-BSF를 이용하여 형성하고 passivation layer는 oxide를 이용한 구조를 SILVACO 2-dimension simulation을 이용하여 그 특성을 분석하였다. Boron-local back contact 구조에서 boron-BSF의 doping concentration, depth, lateral width, boron-BSF spacing 가변을 통해 태양전지의 특성변화에 대해서 spectrum response를 통한 QE 분석 및 I-V를 분석하여 최적화하였다.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.10-15
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• 2015

Cu doping by copper or $Cu_2Te$ materials enhances p+ formation in CdTe near the back contact interface, allowing better formation of ohmic contact. However, the Cu in CdTe junction is also considered as a principal component of CdTe cell degradation. In this paper, Na-doped ZnTe layer was employed as a back contact material to improve the stability of CdTe solar cells. As a process variable, post $CdCl_2$ treatment of CdS/CdTe film was conducted before or after depositing ZnTe:Na on CdTe. The change of the photovoltaic properties of CdTe cells were investigated with aging time. Low-temperature photoluminescence analysis was conducted to describe the degradation mechanism. The result showed that the CdTe solar cells with better stability compare to Cu contact were achieved using an optimized ZnTe:Na back contact.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.53.2-53.2
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• 2010

In this study, we focused on our specialized electrode process for Si back-contact crystalline solar cell. It is different from other well-known back-contact cell process for thermal aspect and specialized process. In general, aluminum makes ohmic contact to the Si wafer and acts as a back surface reflector. And, silver is used for low series resistance metal grid lines. Aluminum was sputtered onto back side of wafer. Next, silver is directly patterned on the wafer by screen printing. The sputtered aluminum was removed by wet etching process after rear silver electrode was formed. In this process, the silver paste must have good printability, electrical property and adhesion strength, before and after the aluminum etching process. Silver paste also needs low temperature firing characteristics to reduce the thermal budget. So it was seriously collected by the products of several company of regarding low temperature firing (below $250^{\circ}C$) and aluminum etching endurance. First of all, silver pastes for etching selectivity were selected to evaluate as low temperature firing condition, electrical properties and adhesive strength. Using the nano- and micron-sized silver paste, so called hybrid type, made low temperature firing. So we could minimize the thermal budget in metallization process. Also the adhesion property greatly depended on the composition of paste, especially added resin and inorganic additives. In this paper, we will show that the metallization process of back-contact solar cell was realized as optimized nano-paste characteristics.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.89-93
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• 2005

A rear contact solar cell has a potential merit of efficiency improvement by a low shading loss in front surface. a simplified module assembly. and a higher packing density. Among the rear contact solar cells. MWT. metallizationl wrap through MWT solar cells that have the bus bars on the back side and the front side metallization is connected to the back through metal filled laser fired holes in the silicon wafer. This approach has the advantages of a much more uniform appearance. The first fabrication of MWT using a multicrystalline silicon modules in our group showed $12.28\%$ on $125mm{\times}125mm$ active area.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.74-80
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• 2008

To improve the blue responses of screen-printed single crystalline silicon solar cells, we investigated an emitter etch-back technique to obtain high emitter sheet resistances, where the defective dead layer on the emitter surface was etched and became thinner as the etch-back time increased, resulting in the monotonous increase of short circuit current and open circuit voltage. We found that an optimal etch-back time should be determined to achieve the maximal performance enhancement because of fill factor decrease due to a series resistance increment mainly affected by contact and lateral resistance in this case. To elucidate the reason for the fill factor decrease, we studied the resistance analysis by potential mapping to determine the contact and the lateral series resistance. As a result, we found that the fill factor decrease was attributed to the relatively fast increase of contact resistance due to the dead layer thinning down with the lowest contact resistivity when the emitter was contacted with screen-printed silver electrode.