• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.19-20
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• 2006

Two methods that can reduce reflectance in solar cells are surface texturing and anti-reflection coating. Wet chemical etching is a typical method that surface texturing of multi-crystalline silicon. Wet chemical etching methods are the acid texturization of saw damage on the surface of multi-crystalline silicon or double-step chemical etching after KOH saw damage removal too. These methods of surface texturing are realized by chemical etching in acid solutions HF-$HNO_3$-$H_2O$. In this solutions we can reduce reflectance spectra by simple process etching of multi-crystalline silicon surface. We have obtained reflectance of 27.19% m 400~1100nm from acidic chemical etching after KOH saw damage removal. This result is about 7% less than just saw damage removal substrate. The surface morphology observed by microscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.26-31
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• 2009

The surface etching characteristics of single crystalline silicon wafer were investigated using potassium hydroxide (KOH) and tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH). The saw damage layer was removed after 10min by KOH 45wt% solution at $80^{\circ}C$. The wafer etched at high temperature ($90^{\circ}C$) and in low concentration (4wt%) of TMAH solution showed an increased etch rate of silicon wafer and wavy patterns on the surface. Especially, pyramidal textures were formed in 4wt% TMAH solution without alcohol additives.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.12
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• pp.835-840
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• 2008

Texturing for crystalline silicon solar cells is one of the important techniques to increase conversion efficiency by effective photon trapping. Generally, incoming wafers or alkali etched wafers are used for texturing. From this conventional etching process, $7{\sim}10{\mu}m$-sized random pyramids are formed. In this study, acid etching for removal of saw damages was practiced before texturing. This improved the resulting surface morphology, which consisted of $2{\sim}4{\mu}m$-sized pyramids. Because these pyramids covered the surface much more extensively, we obtained reduction of optical losses on the surface. In order to compare with conventional texturing, FE-SEM is used for observing surface morphology and reflectance data is analyzed by UV-VIS spectrophotometer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.617-622
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• 2010

We have studied methods to save Si source during the fabrication process of crystalline Si solar cells. One way is to use a thin silicon wafer substrate. As the thickness of the wafers is reduced, mechanical fractures of the substrate increase with the mechanical handling of the thin wafers. It is expected that the mechanical fractures lead to a dropping of yield in the solar cell process. In this study, the mechanical properties of 220-micrometer-solar grade Cz p-type monocrystalline Si wafers were investigated by varying saw-damage etching conditions in order to improve the flexural strength of ultra-thin monocrystalline Si solar cells. Potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution and tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution were used as etching solutions. Etching processes were operated with a varying of the ratio of KOH and TMAH solutions in different temperature conditions. After saw-damage etching, wafers were cleaned with a modified RCA cleaning method for ten minutes. Each sample was divided into 42 pieces using an automatic dicing saw machine. The surface morphologies were investigated by scanning electron microscopy and 3D optical microscopy. The thickness distribution was measured by micrometer. The strength distribution was measured with a 4-point-bending tester. As a result, TMAH solution at $90^{\circ}C$ showed the best performance for flexural strength.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.27-30
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• 2018

The dependency of the electrical characteristics of silicon solar-cells on the depth of damaged layer induced by wire-sawing process was investigated. To compare cell efficiency with residual sawing damage, silicon solar-cells were fabricated by using as-sawn wafers having different depth of saw damage without any damaged etching process. The damaged layer induced by wire-sawing process in silicon bulk intensely influenced the value of fill factor on solar cells, degrading fill factor to 57.20%. In addition, the photovoltaic characteristics of solar cells applying texturing process shows that although the initial depth of saw-damage induced by wire-sawing process was different, the value of short-circuit current, fill-factor, and power-conversion-efficiency have an almost same, showing ~17.4% of cell efficiency. It indicated that the degradation of solar-cell efficiency induced by wire-sawing process could be prevented by eliminating all damaged layer through sufficient pyramid-surface texturing process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.139.2-139.2
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• 2013

6" Multi-crystal Silicon wafer has etched suing a remote - type RF Dielectric barrier discharge (RF DBD) at atmospheric pressure. DBD source is composed of Al electrode and coated Al2O3 dielectric as function of Ar/NF3 gas combination and input power used 13.56 MHz power supply. Ar gas flow rate is changed from 2 to 10 Slm, and NF3 flow rate is changed from 0.2~1 slm. At the result, NF3 flow rate Si etching rate also increase whit the increasing of NF3 flow rate But at 2 slm etching rate was decrease. In this experience, Max etching rate is 2.3 ${\mu}m/min$ when the scan time is 45 sec.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.41.2-41.2
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• 2010

최근 태양전지 제조비용 절감을 위해 초박형 실리콘 태양전지 개발이 활발히 이루어지고 있다. 이에 따라 후면전계(Back Surface Field, BSF) 특성에 대한 관심이 높아지는 추세이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 후면의 결정방향 및 표면구조에 따라 형성되는 후면전계(BSF)의 특성에 대해 알아보고자 하였다. 후면이 절삭손상층 식각(Saw damage etching) 후 (100)면이 드러난 실리콘 기판과 텍스쳐링(Texturing) 후 (111)면이 드러난 실리콘 기판에 후면 전극을 스크린 인쇄 후 Ramp up rate을 달리 하여 소성 공정(RTP system)을 통해 후면전계(BSF)를 형성하여 비교하였다. 후면전계(BSF)의 형상과 특성만을 평가하기 위하여 염산을 이용하여 후면 전극층을 제거하였다. 후면 전극 제거 후 주사전자현미경(Scanning Electron Microscopy)과 3차원 미세형상측정기(Non-contacting optical profiler)로 후면전계(BSF)의 형상을 비교하였다. 또한 후면전계(BSF)의 특성을 평가하고자 Quasi-Steady-State Photo Conductance(QSSPC)를 사용하여 포화전류(Saturation current, $J_0$)을 측정하였고, 면저항 측정기(4-point probe)로 면저항을 측정하여 비교하였다. 후면 전계(BSF)는 (100)면과 (111)면에서 모두 Ramp up rate이 빠를수록 향상된 특성을 보였고, (111)면에서 더 큰 차이를 보였다.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.29-35
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• 2014

In this study general solar cell production process was complemented, with research on improvement of solar cell efficiency through surface structure and thermal annealing process. Firstly, to form the pyramid structure, the saw damage removal (SDR) processed surface was undergone texturing process with reactive ion etching (RIE). Then, for the formation of smooth pyramid structure to facilitate uniform doping and electrode formation, the surface was etched with HND(HF : HNO3 : D.I. water=5 : 100 : 100) solution. Notably, due to uniform doping the leakage current decreased greatly. Also, for the enhancement and maintenance of minority carrier lifetime, antireflection coating thermal annealing was done. To maintain this increased lifetime, front electrode was formed through Au plating process without high temperature firing process. Through these changes in two processes, the leakage current effect could be decreased and furthermore, the conversion efficiency could be increased. Therefore, compared to the general solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 15.89%, production of high efficiency solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 17.24% was made possible.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.299.2-299.2
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• 2013

We investigated the potassium remaining on a crystalline silicon solar cell after potassium hydroxide (KOH) etching and its effect on the lifetime of the solar cell. KOH etching is generally used to remove the saw damage caused by cutting a Si ingot; it can also be used to etch the rear side of a textured crystalline silicon solar cell before atomic layer-deposited Al2O3 growth. However, the potassium remaining after KOH etching is known to be detrimental to the efficiency of Si solar cells. In this study, we etched a crystalline silicon solar cell in three ways in order to determine the effect of the potassium remnant on the efficiency of Si solar cells. After KOH etching, KOH and tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) were used to etch the rear side of a crystalline silicon solar cell. To passivate the rear side, an Al2O3 layer was deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD). After ALD Al2O3 growth on the KOH-etched Si surface, we measured the lifetime of the solar cell by quasi steady-state photoconductance (QSSPC, Sinton WCT-120) to analyze how effectively the Al2O3 layer passivated the interface of the Al2O3 layer and the Si surface. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) was also used to measure how much potassium remained on the surface of the Si wafer and at the interface of the Al2O3 layer and the Si surface after KOH etching and wet cleaning.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.225-232
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• 2011

Reactive ion etching (RIE) technique for maskless surface texturing of mc-silicon solar wafers has been applied and succeed in fabricating a grass-like black-silicon with an average reflectance of $4{\pm}1%$ in a wavelength range of 300~1,200 nm. In order to investigate the optimized texturing conditions for mass production of high quantum efficiency solar cell Surface characteristics such as the spatial distribution of average reflectance, micrscopic surface morphology and minority carrier lifetime were monitored for samples from saw-damaged $15.6{\times}15.6\;cm^2$ bare wafer to key-processed wafers as well as the mc-Si solar cells. We observed that RIE textured wafers reveal lower average reflectance along from center to edges by 1% and referred the origin to the non-uniform surface structures with a depth of 2 times deeper and half-maximum width of 3 times. Samples with anti-reflection coating after forming emitter layer also revealed longer minority carrier lifetime by 40% for the edge compared to wafer center due to size effects. As results, mc-Si solar cells with RIE-textured surface also revealed higher efficiency by 2% and better external quantum efficiency by 15% for edge positions with higher height.