• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.160-160
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• 2016

In this study, we applied the low temperature curing Ag paste to replace PVD System. The electrode formation of low temperature curing Ag paste for silicon Hetero-junction solar cells is important for improving device characteristics such as adhesion, contact resistance, fill factor and conversion efficiency. The low temperature curing Ag paste is composed various additives such as solvent, various organic materials, polymer, and binder. it depends on the curing temperature conditions. The adhesion of the low temperature curing Ag paste was decided by scratch test. The specific contact resistance was measured using the transmission line method. All of the Ag electrodes were experimented at various curing temperatures within the temperature range of $160^{\circ}C-240^{\circ}C$, at $20^{\circ}C$ intervals. The curing time was also changed by varying the conditions of 10-50min. In the optimum curing temperature $200^{\circ}C$ and for 20 min, the measured contact resistance is $19.61m{\Omega}cm^2$. Over temperature $240^{\circ}C$, confirmed bad contact characteristic. We obtained photovoltaic parameter of the industrial size such as Fill Factor (FF), current density (Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc) and convert efficiency of up to 76.2%, 38.1 mA/cm2, 646 mV and 18.3%, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.192-193
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electro less plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electro less and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.571-574
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• 2010

Surface recombination loss should be reduced for high efficiency of solar cells. To reduce this loss, the BSF (back surface field) is used. The BSF on the back of the p-type wafer forms a p+layer, which prevents the activity of electrons of the p-area for the rear recombination. As a result, the leakage current is reduced and the rear-contact has a good Ohmic contact. Therefore, the open-circuit-voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) of solar cells are increased. This paper investigates the formation of the rear contact process by comparing aluminum-paste (Al-paste) with pure aluminum-metal(99.9%). Under the vacuum evaporation process, pure aluminum-metal(99.9%) provides high conductivity and low contact resistance of $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$, but It is difficult to apply the standard industrial process to it because high vacuum is needed, and it's more expensive than the commercial equipment. On the other hand, using the Al-paste process by screen printing is simple for the formation of metal contact, and it is possible to produce the standard industrial process. However, Al-paste used in screen printing is lower than the conductivity of pure aluminum-metal(99.9) because of its mass glass frit. In this study, contact resistances were measured by a 4-point probe. The contact resistance of pure aluminum-metal was $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$ and that of Al-paste was $35.69\;m{\Omega}cm$. Then the rear contact was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM).

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.11
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• pp.905-909
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• 2011

The formation of front metal contact silicon solar cells is required for low cost, low contact resistance to silicon surfaces. One of the available front metal contacts is Ni/Cu plating, which can be mass produced via asimple and inexpensive process. A selective emitter, meanwhile, involves two different doping levels, with higher doping (${\leq}30{\Omega}/sq$) underneath the grid to achieve good ohmic contact and low doping between the grid in order to minimize the heavy doping effect in the emitter. This study describes the formation of a selective emitter and a nickel silicide seed layer for the front metallization of silicon cells. The contacts were thickened by a plated Ni/Cu two-step metallization process on front contacts. The experimental results showed that the Ni layer via SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and EDX (Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) analyses. Finally, a plated Ni/Cu contact solar cell displayed efficiency of 18.10% on a $2{\times}2cm^2$, Cz wafer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.497-502
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• 2008

BGA test sockets failed earlier than the expected life-time due to abnormal signal delay, shown especially at the low temperature ($-50^{\circ}C$). Analysis of failed sockets was conducted by EDX, AES, and XRD. A SnO layer contaminated with C was found to form on the surface of socket pins. The formation of SnO layer was attributed to the repeated Sn transfer from BGA balls to pin surface and instant oxidation of fresh Sn. As a result, contact resistance increased, inducing signal delay. Abnormal signal delay at the low temperature was attributed to the increasing resistivity of Sn oxide with decreasing temperature, as manifested by the resistance measurement of $SnO_2$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.28A no.10
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• pp.814-820
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• 1991

TaSi$_2$ was formed by rapid thermal annealing(RTA) on BF$_2$ doped single crystalline silicon substrates. The formation and various properties of TaSi$_2$ have been investigated by using 4-point probe, HP414, XRD, and SEM. And the redistribution of boron with RTA has been observed by SIMS. Implanted boron was diffused out into the TaSi$_2$ for RTA temperature but did not significantly affect the formation temperature of TaSi$_2$. Also, the contact resistance for TaSi$_2$/p$^{+}$ region had a low value 22$\Omega$, at contact size of 0.9$\mu$m, and the native oxide formed on Si-substrates by BF$_2$ implantation retarded the formation of TaSi$_2$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.292-292
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• 2014

Wide band gap semiconductors, such as III-nitrides (GaN, AlN, InN, and their alloys), SiC, and diamond are expected to play an important role in the next-generation electronic devices. Specifically, GaN-based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) have been targeted for high power, high frequency, and high temperature operation electronic devices for mobile communication systems, radars, and power electronics because of their high critical breakdown fields, high saturation velocities, and high thermal conductivities. For the stable operation, high power, high frequency and high breakdown voltage and high current density, the fabrication methods have to be optimized with considerable attention. In this study, low ohmic contact resistance and smooth surface morphology to AlGaN/GaN on 2 inch c-plane sapphire substrate has been obtained with stepwise annealing at three different temperatures. The metallization was performed under deposition of a composite metal layer of Ti/Al/Ni/Au with thickness. After multi-layer metal stacking, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) process was applied with stepwise annealing temperature program profile. As results, we obtained a minimum specific contact resistance of $1.6{\times}10^{-7}{\Omega}cm2$.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.545-551
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• 2012

In semiconductor manufacturing, the circuit integrity of packaged BGA devices is tested by measuring electrical resistance using test sockets. Test sockets have been reported to often fail earlier than the expected life-time due to high contact resistance. This has been attributed to the formation of Sn oxide films on the Au coating layer of the probe pins loaded on the socket. Similar to contact failure, and known as "fretting", this process widely occurs between two conductive surfaces due to the continual rupture and accumulation of oxide films. However, the failure mechanism at the probe pin differs from fretting. In this study, the microstructural processes and formation mechanisms of Sn oxide films developed on the probe pin surface were investigated. Failure analysis was conducted mainly by FIB-FESEM observations, along with EDX, AES, and XRD analyses. Soft and fresh Sn was found to be transferred repeatedly from the solder bump to the Au surface of the probe pins; it was then instantly oxidized to SnO. The $SnO_2$ phase is a more stable natural oxide, but SnO has been proved to grow on Sn thin film at low temperature (< $150^{\circ}C$). Further oxidation to $SnO_2$ is thought to be limited to 30%. The SnO film grew layer by layer up to 571 nm after testing of 50,500 cycles (1 nm/100 cycle). This resulted in the increase of contact resistance and thus of signal delay between the probe pin and the solder bump.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.225-229
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• 2009

The front metal contact is one of the most important element influences in efficiency in the silicon solar cell. First of all selective of the material and formation method is important in metal contacts. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste process is simple relatively and mass production is easy. But it suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance. Besides Ag paste too expensive. because of depends income. This paper applied for Ni/Cu metallization replace for paste of screen printing front metal contact. Low cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electroless plating and electroplating techniques to replace the screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni has been proposed as a suitable silicide for the salicidation process and is expected to replace conventional silicides. Copper is a promising material for the electrical contacts in solar cells in terms of conductivity and cost. In experiments Ni/Cu metal contact applied same grid formation of screen-printed solar cell. And it has variation of different grid spacing. It was verified that the wide spacing of grid finger could increase the series resistance also the narrow spacing of grid finger also implies a grid with a higher density of grid fingers. Through different grid spacing found alteration of efficiency.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.230-234
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• 2009

It is significant technique to increase competitiveness that solar cells have a high energy conversion efficiency and cost effectiveness. When making high efficiency crystalline Si solar cells, evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is widely used in order to reduce the electrical resistance of the contact fingers. However, the evaporation process is no applicable to mass production because high vacuum is needed. Furthermore, those metals are too expensive to be applied for terrestrial applications. Ni/Cu/Ag contact system of silicon solar cells offers a relatively inexpensive method of making electrical contact. Ni silicide formation is one of the indispensable techniques for Ni/Cu/Ag contact sytem. Ni was electroless plated on the front grid pattern, After Ni electroless plating, the cells were annealed by RTP(Rapid Thermal Process). Ni silicide(NiSi) has certain advantages over Ti silicide($TiSi_2$), lower temperature anneal, one step anneal, low resistivity, low silicon consumption, low film stress, absence of reaction between the annealing ambient. Ni/Cu/Ag metallization scheme is an important process in the direction of cost reduction for solar cells of high efficiency. In this article we shall report an investigation of rapid thermal silicidation of nickel on silngle crystalline silicon wafers in the annealing range of $350-390^{\circ}C$. The samples annealed at temperatures from 350 to $390^{\circ}C$ have been analyzed by SEM(Scanning Electron Microscopy).