• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.41-47
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• 2014

Extensive investigation on silicon based thin film reveals a wide range of film characteristics, from low optical gap to high optical gap, from amorphous to micro-crystalline silicon etc. Fabrication of single junction, tandem and triple junction solar cell with suitable materials, indicate that fabrication of solar cell of a relatively moderate efficiency is possible with a better light induced stability. Due to these investigations, various competing materials like wide band gap silicon carbide and silicon oxide, low band gap micro-crystalline silicon and silicon germanium etc were also prepared and applied to the solar cells. Such a multi-junction solar cell can be a technologically promising photo-voltaic device, as the external quantum efficiency of such a cell covers a wider spectral range.

• 한국표면공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국표면공학회 2012년도 춘계학술발표회 논문집
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• pp.151-152
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• 2012

라만(Raman) 분광법은 실리콘의 결정화도를 분석하는데 가장 유용하게 쓰이는 기법이다. 본 논문에서는 상압 플라즈마 화학기상증착법 (atmospheric pressure plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, AP-PECVD)에 의해 형성된 실리콘 박막의 결정화도를 라만 분광법에 의해 분석하였다. 라만 분석 시, 조사하는 레이져의 파장에 따라서 실리콘 박막 내로의 침투깊이가 결정된다. 또한 레이져의 파워가 임계점을 넘게 되면, 레이져에 의한 실리콘의 결정화가 진행되는 것을 확인하였다.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2014년도 제46회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.322.1-322.1
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• 2014

Many research groups have studied tandem or multi-junction cells to overcome this low efficiency and degradation. In multi-junction cells, band-gap engineering of each absorb layer is needed to absorb the light at various wavelengths efficiently. Various absorption layers can be formed using multi-junctions, such as hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H), amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe:H) and microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c$-Si:H), etc. Among them, ${\mu}c$-Si:H is the bottom absorber material because it has a low band-gap and does not exhibit light-induced degradation like amorphous silicon. Nevertheless, ${\mu}c$-Si:H requires a much thicker material (>2 mm) to absorb sufficient light due to its smaller light absorption coefficient, highlighting the need for a high growth rate for productivity. ${\mu}c$-SiGe:H has a much higher absorption coefficient than ${\mu}c$-Si:H at the low energy wavelength, meaning that the thickness of the absorption layer can be decreased to less than half that of ${\mu}c$-Si:H. ${\mu}c$-SiGe:H films were prepared using 40 MHz very high frequency PECVD method at 1 Torr. SiH4 and GeH4 were used as a reactive gas and H2 was used as a dilution gas. In this study, the ${\mu}c$-SiGe:H layer for triple solar cells applications was performed to optimize the film properties.

• 한국전기전자재료학회논문지
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.320-323
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• 2018

SiGe thin films were deposited by remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RPE-CVD) at $400^{\circ}C$ using $SiH_4$ or $SiCl_4$ and $GeCl_4$ as the source of Si and Ge, respectively. The growth rate and the degree of crystallinity of the fabricated films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and Raman analysis, respectively. The optical and electrical properties of SiGe films fabricated using $SiCl_4$ and $SiH_4$ source were comparatively studied. SiGe films deposited using $SiCl_4$ source showed a lower growth rate and higher crystallinity than those deposited using $SiH_4$ source. Ultraviolet and visible spectroscopy measurement showed that the optical band gap of SiGe is in the range of 0.88~1.22 eV.

• 대한전자공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전자공학회 2003년도 하계종합학술대회 논문집 II
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• pp.1113-1116
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• 2003

This review article gives a comprehensive compilation of recent developments in low temperature deposited poly Si flms, also known as microcrystalline silicon. The development of various ion energy suppression techniques for plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition and ionless depositions such as HWCVD and expanding thermal plasma, and their effect on the material and solar cell efficiencies are described. A correlation between ef.ciency and the two most important process parameters, i.e., growth rate and process temperature is carried out. Finally, the application of these poly Si cells in multijunction cell structures and the best efficiencies worldwide by various deposition techniques are discussed.

• 한국표면공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국표면공학회 2009년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.98-98
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• 2009

Hydrogenated nano-, microcrystalline silicon 박막(nc-, ${\mu}c-Si:H$)은 박막 트랜지스터 및 실리콘 박막형 태양전지등에 널리 쓰이고 있다. 이러한 결정화 실리콘 박막을 내장형 안테나를 사용하여 고밀도 플라즈마를 발생시킬 수 있는 장치를 통하여 증착 후 열처리 공정이 없는 방법을 사용하여 박막을 제작하였다. 특히, 증착시 기판에 바이어스를 함께 인가하므로 증착된 박막의 결정화에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구를 하였다. 기판에 인가된 바이어스가 60W일 때 가장 높은 결정화율을 보이는 것을 알 수 있었다.

• 한국표면공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국표면공학회 2016년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.181-181
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• 2016

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c-Si:H$) films have attracted much attention as materials of the bottom-cells in Si thin film tandem photovoltaics due to their low bandgap and excellent stability against light soaking. However, in PECVD, the source gas $SiH_4$ must be highly diluted by $H_2$, which eventually results in low deposition rate. Moreover, it is known that high-rate ${\mu}c-Si:H$ growth is usually accompanied by a large number of dangling-bond (DB) defects in the resulting films, which act as recombination centers for photoexcited carriers, leading to a deterioration in the device performance. During film deposition, Si nanoparticles generated in $SiH_4$ discharges can be incorporated into films, and such incorporation may have effects on film properties depending on the size, structure, and volume fraction of nanoparticles incorporated into films. Here we report experimental results on the effects of nonoparticles incorporation at the different substrate temperature studied using a multi-hollow discharge plasma CVD method in which such incorporation can be significantly suppressed in upstream region by setting the gas flow velocity high enough to drive nanoparticles toward the downstream region. All experiments were performed with the multi-hollow discharge plasma CVD reactor at RT, 100, and $250^{\circ}C$, respectively. The gas flow rate ratio of $SiH_4$ to $H_2$ was 0.997. The total gas pressure P was kept at 2 Torr. The discharge frequency and power were 60 MHz, 180 W, respectively. Crystallinity Xc of resulting films was evaluated using Raman spectra. The defect densities of the films were measured with electron spin resonance (ESR). The defect density of fims deposited in the downstream region (with nonoparticles) is higher defect density than that in the upstream region (without nanoparticles) at low substrate temperature of RT and $100^{\circ}C$. This result indicates that nanoparticle incorporation can change considerably their film properties depending on the substrate temperature.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전기학회 2000년도 하계학술대회 논문집 C
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• pp.1763-1765
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• 2000

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon ($\mu$ c-Si:H) films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature at 300$^{\circ}C$. The flow rates of $SiH_4$ gas are critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. We could obtain $\mu$ c-Si:H with columnar grain structure and volume fraction of 75% without H2 dilution. The electronic properties, hydrogen bonding configurations, and $H_2$ concentration inside the films are also strongly affected by $SiH_4$ flow rate, which is provided in this paper.

• 전기학회논문지
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• 제65권10호
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• pp.1694-1696
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• 2016

Present thin film solar cells with hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO:H) as an absorber suffer from low fill factor(FF) of 61~64 [%] in spite of its benefits related to high open circuit voltage ($V_{oc}$). Since degraded quality of a-SiO:H absorber by alloying with oxygen can affect the FF, we aimed to achieve high photosensitivity by minimizing $CO_2$ gas addition. Improving optical gap($E_{opt}$) has been attained by strong hydrogen dilution combined with lowering substrate temperature down to 100 [$^{\circ}C$]. Small amount of the $CO_2$ was added in order to disturb microcrystalline formation by high hydrogen dilution. The developed a-SiO:H has high photosensitivity (${\sim}2{\times}10^5$) and high $E_{opt}$ of 1.85 [eV], which contributed to attain remarkable FF of 74 [%] and high $V_{oc}$ (>1 [V]). As a result, high power conversion efficiency of 7.18 [%] was demonstrated by using very thin absorber layer of only 100 [nm], even though we processed all experiment at extremely low temperature of 100 [$^{\circ}C$].

• 신재생에너지
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• 제2권3호
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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.