• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.66-69
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• 2002

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon$({\mu}c-Si:H)$ films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature below $300^{\circ}C$. The $SiH_{4}$ concentration$[F(SiH_{4})/F(SiH_{4})+F(H_{2})]$ is critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. At 6% of silane concentration, deposited intrinsic ${\mu}c-Si:H$ films shows sufficiently low dark conductivity and high photo sensitivity for solar cell applications. P-type ${\mu}c-Si:H$ films deposited by Hot-Wire CVD also shows good electrical properties by varying the rate of $B_{2}H_{6}$ to $SiH_{4}$ gas. The solar cells with structure of Al/nip ${\mu}c-Si:H$/TCO/glass was fabricated with single chamber Hot-Wire CVD. About 3% solar efficiency was obtained and applicability of HWCVD for thin film solar cells was proven in this research.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.493-493
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• 2014

The manufacturing cost of thin-film photovoltics can potentially be lowered by minimizing the amount of a semiconductor material used to fabricate devices. Thin-film solar cells are typically only a few micrometers thick, whereas crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer solar cells are $180{\sim}300\mu}m$ thick. As such, thin-film layers do not fully absorb incident light and their energy conversion efficiency is lower compared with that of c-Si wafer solar cells. Therefore, effective light trapping is required to realize commercially viable thin-film cells, particularly for indirect-band-gap semiconductors such as c-Si. An emerging method for light trapping in thin film solar cells is the use of metallic nanostructures that support surface plasmons. Plasmon-enhanced light absorption is shown to increase the cell photocurrent in many types of solar cells, specifically, in c-Si thin-film solar cells and in poly-Si thin film solar cell. By proper engineering of these structures, light can be concentrated and coupled into a thin semiconductor layer to increase light absorption. In many cases, silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NP) are formed either on the front surface or on the rear surface on the cells. In case of poly-Si thin film solar cells, Ag NPs are formed on the rear surface of the cells due to longer wavelengths are not perfectly absorbed in the active layer on the first path. In our cells, shorter wavelengths typically 300~500 nm are also not effectively absorbed. For this reason, a new concept of plasmonic nanostructure which is NPs formed both the front - and the rear - surface is worth testing. In this simulation Al NPs were located onto glass because Al has much lower parasitic absorption than other metal NPs. In case of Ag NP, it features parasitic absorption in the optical frequency range. On the other hand, Al NP, which is non-resonant metal NP, is characterized with a higher density of conduction electrons, resulting in highly negative dielectric permittivity. It makes them more suitable for the forward scattering configuration. In addition to this, Ag NP is located on the rear surface of the cell. Ag NPs showed good performance enhancement when they are located on the rear surface of our cells. In this simulation, Al NPs are located on glass and Ag NP is located on the rear Si surface. The structure for the simulation is shown in figure 1. Figure 2 shows FDTD-simulated absorption graphs of the proposed and reference structures. In the simulation, the front of the cell has Al NPs with 70 nm radius and 12.5% coverage; and the rear of the cell has Ag NPs with 157 nm in radius and 41.5% coverage. Such a structure shows better light absorption in 300~550 nm than that of the reference cell without any NPs and the structure with Ag NP on rear only. Therefore, it can be expected that enhanced light absorption of the structure with Al NP on front at 300~550 nm can contribute to the photocurrent enhancement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.211-211
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• 2012

The electrical loss of the photo-generated carriers is dominated by the recombination at the metal- semiconductor interface. In order to enhance the performance of the solar cells, many studies have been performed on the surface treatment with passivation layer like SiN, SiO2, Al2O3, and a-Si:H. In this work, Al2O3 thin films were investigated to reduce recombination at surface. The Al2O3 thin films have two advantages, such as good passivation properties and back surface field (BSF) effect at rear surface. It is usually deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. However, ALD process is a very expensive process and it has rather low deposition rate. In this study, the ICP-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering method was used to deposit Al2O3 thin films. For optimization of the properties of the Al2O3 thin film, various fabrication conditions were controlled, such as ICP RF power, substrate bias voltage and deposition temperature, and argon to oxygen ratio. Chemical states and atomic concentration ratio were analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In order to investigate the electrical properties, Al/(Al2O3 or SiO2,/Al2O3)/Si (MIS) devices were fabricated and characterized using the C-V measurement technique (HP 4284A). The detailed characteristics of the Al2O3 passivation thin films manufactured by ICP-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering technique will be shown and discussed.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.31-36
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• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film(a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides(TCO) in order to see the effect of TCO/p-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage VOC than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer(${\mu}c-Si:H$) between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{OC}$ of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{OC}$ of 994mV while keeping fill factor(72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{SC}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{OC}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.158-161
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• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film (a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides (TCO) In order to see the effect of TCO/P-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage $V_{oc}$ than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer $({\mu}c-Si:H)$ between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{oc}$, of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{oc}$, of 994mv while keeping fill factor (72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{sc}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{oc}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.391-391
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• 2011

Crystalline silicon solar cell을 양산에 적용하기 위해 전면 전극의 패턴을 형성하는 방법으로 Ag paste를 이용한 screen printing이 가장 일반적으로 사용된다. 전면 전극의 패턴 형성 시, Finger의 width와 spacing은 Fill factor, JSC, VOC 등 태양전지의 중요 parameter들과 관련되어, 효율에 영향을 미치기 때문에, printing 시 Finger width와 spacing을 최적화하여 최대한의 효율을 내는 조건을 찾는 것이 바람직하다. 본 연구에서는 Finger width를 $30{\mu}m{\sim}100{\mu}m$, spacing을 $1.8{\mu}m{\sim}2.8{\mu}m$ 까지 가변하여 c-Si solar cell을 제작하였으며, 제작된 cell의 LIV를 측정을 통하여, 최적의 효율을 내는 조건을 찾고자 하였다. 그 결과 Finger width $30{\mu}m$, Finger spacing $1.8{\mu}m$의 조건에서 17.12%로 최고의 효율을 나타내었다.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.73-78
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• 2008

We investigated for comparison of large-area i-a-Si:H and p-a-SiC:H film quality like thickness uniformity, optical bandgap and surface roughness using both ICP-CVD and PECVD on the large-area substrate(diameter of 100 mm). As a whole, films using ICP-CVD could be achieved much uniform thickness and bandgap of that using PECVD. For i-a-Si:H films, its uniformity of thickness and optical bandgap were 2.8 % and 0.38 %, respectively. Also, thickness and optical bandgap of p-a-SiC:H films using ICP-CVD could be obtained at 1.8 % and 0.3 %, respectively. In case of surface roughness, average surface roughness (below 5 nm) of ICP-CVD film could be much better than that (below 30 nm) of PECVD film. HIT solar cell with 2 wt%-AZO/p-a-SiC:H/i-a-Si:H/c-Si/Ag structure was fabricated and characterized with diameter of 152.3 mm in this large-area ICP-CVD system. Conversion efficiency of 9.123 % was achieved with a practical area of $100\;mm\;{\times}\;100\;mm$, which can show the potential to fabrication of the large-area solar cell using ICP-CVD method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.313.2-313.2
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• 2013

본 연구에서는 기존에 연구된 Solar Cell 보다 구조 및 제작이 단순한 $Al/Al_2O_3/Si$(100) Solar cell을 제작하여 평가하였다. 기판으로는 p-type Si(100), 0.5~2 ${\Omega}{\cdot}cm$을 사용하여 chemical cleaning 후 ALD(Atom Layer Deposition)법으로 Al2O3 터널링 절연막을 증착하였으며, 박막의 두께를 1~10 nm로 변화시켜 MIS 커패시터의 터널링 효과를 평가하였다. MIS 커패시터의 전기적 특성평가를 위해 누설전류 밀도-전계 특성은 pA meter/DC Voltage source를 사용하였고, 커패시턴스-전압특성, D-factor 특성은 precision LCR meter를 사용하였다. $Al/Al_2O_3/Si$(100) Solar cell의 특성평가를 위해 300~1100nm 파장영역에 따른 양자 효율을 평가하기 위해 Quantum Efficiency system (QE)을 사용하였고, Stanard Test Conditions 100 $mW/cm^2$, AM1.5, $25^{\circ}C$ 조건의 Voc, Isc, Jsc, FF (Fill Factor) 및 Efficiency(%)를 평가하기 위해 Solar simulator를 이용하였다.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.179-183
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• 2008

Employing screen printing technology, aluminum is applied to the back side of the n-type silicon wafer to see the effect of the heat treatment parameters on the Voc of the solar cell, Heat treatment at $850^{\circ}C$ produces the highest Voc among various heat treatment conditions. Heat treatment at the temperatures higher than $850^{\circ}C$ results in lower Voc, which is due to the destruction of the Al-Si alloy emitter layer. The destruction of Al-Si layer observed to be caused by the vigorous movement of silicon atoms toward aluminum layer during the heat treatment.