• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.27-33
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• 2014

To develop high efficiency crystalline solar cells, the $SiN_x$ film for surface passivation and anti-reflection coating is very important and it is generally deposited by PECVD. In this paper, the $SiN_x$ film deposited by Hot-Wire chemical vapor deposition(HWCVD) that has no plasma damage was studied. First, to optimize the $SiN_x$ film deposition process, $SiH_4$ gas rate and substrate temperature were varied and then refractive index and thickness were measured. When $SiH_4$ gas rate was 22sccm and substrate temperature was $100^{\circ}C$, refractive index was 1.94 and higher than that of other process conditions. Second, the lifetime was measured by varying the annealing temperature and time. The annealing process was made from 5 to 30 minutes at $300{\sim}500^{\circ}C$. When the annealing temperature was $100^{\circ}C$ and time was 10minute, the lifetime was the highest. The lifetime of annealed samples was also measured after the firing process at $975^{\circ}C$. Although the lifetime of all samples was decreased by firing process, the lifetime of annealed samples before the firing process was higher than that of fired samples only. Finally, the characteristics of solar cells with HWCVD $SiN_x$ film were measured.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.45-49
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• 2007

The poly-Si thin film transistor (TFT) shows large variations in its characteristics due to the grain boundary of poly-crystalline silicon. This results in unacceptably large input offset of low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) receivers. To cancel the large input offset of poly-Si TFT LVDS receivers, a full-digital offset compensation scheme has been developed and verified to be able to keep the input offset under 15 mV which is sufficiently small for LVDS signal receiving.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.103-108
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• 2013

Epitaxial growth of a high-quality thin Si film is essential for the application to low-cost thin-film Si solar cells. A polycrystalline Si film was grown on a $SiO_2$ substrate at $450^{\circ}C$ by a Al-assisted crystal growth process. For the purpose, a thin Al layer was deposited on the $SiO_2$ substrate for Al-assisted crystal growth. However, the epitaxial growth of Si film resulted in a rough surface with humps. Then, we introduced a thin amorphous Si seed layer on the Al film to minimize the initial roughness of Si film. With the help of the Si seed layer, the surface of the epitaxial Si film was smooth and the crystallinity of the Si film was much improved. The grain size of the $1.5-{\mu}m$-thick Si film was as large as 1 mm. The Al content in the Si film was 3.7% and the hole concentration was estimated to be $3{\times}10^{17}/cm^3$, which was one order of magnitude higher than desirable value for Si base layer. The results suggest that Al-doped Si layer could be use as a seed layer for additional epitaxial growth of intrinsic or boron-doped Si layer because the Al-doped Si layer has large grains.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2012

The Hydrogenated silicon nitride (SiNx:H) using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition is widely used in photovoltaic industry as an antireflection coating and passivation layer. In the high temperature firing process, the $SiN_x:H$ film should not change the properties for its use as high quality surface layer in crystalline silicon solar cells. Initially PECVD-$SiN_x:H$ film trends were investigated by varying the deposition parameters (temperature, electrode gap, RF power, gas flow rate etc.) to optimize the process parameter conditions. Then by varying gas ratios ($NH_3/SiH_4$), the hydrogenated silicon nitride films were analyzed for its optical, electrical, chemical and surface passivation properties. The $SiN_x:H$ films of refractive indices 1.90~2.20 were obtained. The film deposited with the gas ratio of 3.6 (Refractive index=1.98) showed the best properties in after firing process condition. The single crystalline silicon solar cells fabricated according to optimized gas ratio (R=3.6) condition on large area substrate of size $156{\times}156mm$ (Pseudo square) was found to have the conversion efficiency as high as 17.2%. Optimized hydrogenated silicon nitride surface layer and high efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells fabrication sequence has also been explained in this study.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.52.2-52.2
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• 2009

Si 박막형 solar cell은 Si 결정형 solar cell대비 cost 및 대면적화 측면에서 장점을 가지고 있다. 그러나 amorphous Si의 경우 light soacking에 의한 열화 문제가 있고, microcrystalline Si의 경우 요구되는 효율 확보를 위하여 $1.5{\mu}m$ 이상 두께가 필요하며, 증착율이 $5{\AA}/sec$.이하인 단점이 있다. 본 연구에서는 high deposition rate로 microcrystalline Si를 증착하기 위하여 high frequency, high power PECVD를 이용하였으며, RF power, 증착온도, H2/SiH4 ratio의 3인자를 3수준으로 변화시킨 완전요인배치 실험을 실시하였다. 실험결과 증착율은 $8.0{\AA}/sec.{\sim}52.8{\AA}/sec$ 범위, crystalline fraction은 0%~83.3% 범위의 결과를 얻었으며, 결정이 형성된 조건에서는 XRD분석결과 $2\theta=28.5$ 및 47.5에서 Si (111), (220) peak을 확인할 수 있었다. Surface Profilometer 를 이용한 surface roughness의 경우 $6.3{\AA}\sim32.4{\AA}$ 범위의 결과를 얻었으며, crystalline Portion이 높을수록 surface roughness가 증가함을 알 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2016

Thin films synthesized by plasma processes have been widely applied in a variety of industrial sectors. The structure control of thin film is one of prime factor in most of these applications. It is well known that the structure of this film is closely associated with plasma parameters and species of plasma which are electrons, ions, radical and neutrals in plasma processes. However the precise control of structure by plasma process is still limited due to inherent complexity, reproducibility and control problems in practical implementation of plasma processing. Therefore the study on the fundamental physical properties that govern the plasmas becomes more crucial for molecular scale control of film structure and corresponding properties for new generation nano scale film materials development and application. The thin films are formed through nucleation and growth stages during thin film depostion. Such stages involve adsorption, surface diffusion, chemical binding and other atomic processes at surfaces. This requires identification, determination and quantification of the surface activity of the species in the plasma. Specifically, the ions and neutrals have kinetic energies ranging from ~ thermal up to tens of eV, which are generated by electron impact of the polyatomic precursor, gas phase reaction, and interactions with the substrate and reactor walls. The present work highlights these aspects for the controlled and low-temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapour disposition (PECVD) of Si-based films like crystalline Si (c-Si), Si-quantum dot, and sputtered crystalline C by the design and control of radicals, plasmas and the deposition energy. Additionally, there is growing demand on the low-temperature deposition process with low hydrogen content by PECVD. The deposition temperature can be reduced significantly by utilizing alternative plasma concepts to lower the reaction activation energy. Evolution in this area continues and has recently produced solutions by increasing the plasma excitation frequency from radio frequency to ultra high frequency (UHF) and in the range of microwave. In this sense, the necessity of dedicated experimental studies, diagnostics and computer modelling of process plasmas to quantify the effect of the unique chemistry and structure of the growing film by radical and plasma control is realized. Different low-temperature PECVD processes using RF, UHF, and RF/UHF hybrid plasmas along with magnetron sputtering plasmas are investigated using numerous diagnostics and film analysis tools. The broad outlook of this work also outlines some of the 'Grand Scientific Challenges' to which significant contributions from plasma nanoscience-related research can be foreseen.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.156-161
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• 2007

This paper describes the characteristics of polycrystalline ${\beta}$ or 3C (cubic)-SiC (silicon carbide) thin films heteroepitaxailly grown on Si wafers with thermal oxide. In this work, the poly 3C-SiC film was deposited by APCVD (atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition) method using HMDS (hexamethyildisilane: $Si_{2}(CH_{3}_{6})$ single precursor. The deposition was performed under various conditions to determine the optimized growth conditions. The crystallinity of the 3C-SiC thin film was analyzed by XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy), XRD (X-ray diffraction) and FT-IR (fourier transform-infrared spectometers), respectively. The surface morphology was also observed by AFM (atomic force microscopy) and voids or dislocations between SiC and $SiO_{2}$ were measured by SEM (scanning electron microscope). Finally, depth profiling was invesigated by GDS (glow discharge spectrometer) for component ratios analysis of Si and C according to the grown 3C-SiC film thickness. From these results, the grown poly 3C-SiC thin film is very good crystalline quality, surface like mirror and low defect. Therfore, the poly 3C-SiC thin film is suitable for extreme environment, Bio and RF MEMS applications in conjunction with Si micromaching.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.486-492
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• 1998

Silicon carbide (SiC) thin films were deposited on the porous silicon substrates by chemical vapour de-position(CVD) using MTS as a source material. The deposited films were ${\beta}$-SiC with poor crystallity con-firmed by XRD measurement. It was considered that the films showed the mixed characteistics of cry-stalline and amorphous SiC where amorphous SiC where amorphous SiC played a role of buffer layer in interface between as-dep films and Si substrate. The buffer layer reduced lattice mismatch to some extent the generally occurs when SiC films are deposited on Si. The low temperature (10K) PL (phtoluminescence) studies showed two broad bands with peaks at 600 and 720 for the films deposited at 1100$^{\circ}C$ The maximum PL peak of the crystalline SiC was observed at 600 nm and the amrophous SiC of 720 nm was also confirmed. PL peak due the amorphous SiC was smaller than that of the crystalline SiC, PL of porous Si might be disapperared due to densification during heat treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.1103-1110
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• 1995

Silicon carbide (SiC) films have been deposited on the isotropic graphite by chemical vapor deposition. Change of deposition parameters affected significantly the microstructure and preferred orientation of SiC films. Preferred orientation of SiC films was (111) or (220), and microstructure showed the startified structure consisting of small crystallite or faceted columnar structure depending on the deposition parameters. For microhardness, (111) oriented film and stratified structure were superior to (220) oriented film and faceted columnar structure, respectively. Surface of (111) oriented films was less rough than that of (220) oriented films. Adhesion force between graphite substrate and SiC films was above 100N for crystalline films and 49N for amorphous film.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.68-71
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• 2020

In this study, SiNx and Al₂O₃ thin film was manufactured using PECVD deposition process and applied to crystalline silicon solar cells, resulting in 16.7% conversion efficiency. The structural improvement experiment of the rear electrode resulted in a 1.7% improvement in conversion efficiency compared to the reference cell by reducing the recombination rate of minority carriers and increasing the carrier lifetime by forming a passivation layer consisting of SiNx and Al₂O₃ thin films through the PECVD process.