• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

Light induced degradation is one of the major research challenges of hydrogenated amorphous silicon related thin film silicon solar cells. Amorphous silicon shows creation of metastable defect states, originating from elevated concentration of dangling bonds during light exposure. The metastable defect states work as recombination centers, and mostly affects quality of intrinsic layer in solar cells. In this paper we present results of light induced degradation in thin film silicon solar cells and discussion on physical origin, mechanism and practical solutions of light induced degradation in thin film silicon solar cells. In-situ light-soaking IV measurement techniques are presented. We also present thin film silicon material with silicon nano-quantum dots embedded within amorphous matrix, which shows superior stability during light-soaking. Our results suggest that solar cell using silicon nano-quantum dots in abosrber layer shows superior stability under light soaking, compared to the conventional amorphous silicon solar cell.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.26-30
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• 2021

The impurity concentration is a crucial parameter for semiconductor thin films. Evaluating the impurity distribution in silicon thin film is another challenge. In this study, we have investigated the doping concentration of boron in silicon thin film using time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry in dynamic mode of operation. Boron doped silicon film was grown on i) p-type silicon wafer and ii) borosilicate glass using hot wire chemical vapor deposition technique for possible applications in optoelectronic devices. Using well-tuned SIMS measurement recipe, we have detected the boron counts 101~104 along with the silicon matrix element. The secondary ion beam sputtering area, sputtering duration and mass analyser analysing duration were used as key variables for the tuning of the recipe. The quantitative analysis of counts to concentration conversion was done following standard relative sensitivity factor. The concentration of boron in silicon was determined 1017~1021 atoms/㎤. The technique will be useful for evaluating distributions of various dopants (arsenic, phosphorous, bismuth etc.) in silicon thin film efficiently.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.218-221
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• 2008

Bottom-gate microcrystalline silicon thin film transistors (${\mu}c$-Si:H TFTs) were fabricated on glass and transparent polyimide substrates by conventional 13.56 MHz RF plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at $200^{\circ}C$. The deposition rate of the ${\mu}c$-Si:H film is 24 nm/min and the amorphous incubation layer near the ${\mu}c$-Si:H/silicon nitride interface is unobvious. The threshold voltage of ${\mu}c$-Si:H TFTs can be improved by $H_2$ or $NH_3$ plasma pretreatment silicon nitride film.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.34-38
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• 1997

This paper presents a joining method by using the silicon wafer in order to apply to joint to the 3-dimensional structures of semiconductor device, high-speed , high integration, micro machine, silicon integrated sensor, and actuator. In this study, the high atomic beam, stabilized by oxidation film and organic materials at the material surface, is investigated, and the purified is obtained by removing the oxidation film and pollution layer at the materials. And the unstable surface is obtained, which can be easily joined. In order to use the low temperatures for the joint method, the main subjects are obtained as follows: 1) In the case of the silicon wafer and the silicon wafer and the silicon wafer of alumina sputter film, the specimens can be jointed at 2$0^{\circ}C$, and the joining strength is 5Mpa. 2) The specimens can not always be joined at the room temperatures in the case of the silicon wafer and the silicon wafer of alumina sputter film.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.299-306
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• 1998

Crystallization of the amorphous silicon needs activation. Thermal energy through laser annealing, furnace annealing and rapid thermal process (RTP) has been convinced to crystallize the amorphous silicon thin film. It is expected that some other type of energy like mechanical energy can help to crystallize the amorphous silicon thin film. In this study, mechanical energy through wet blasting of silica slurry and silicon ion implantation has been applied to the amorphous silicon thin film deposited with LPCVD technique. RTP was employed for the annealing of this mechanically-damaged amorphous silicon thin film. For the characterization of the crystallized silicon thin film, XRD and Raman analysis were conducted. In this study, it is shown that the mechanical damage is effective to enhance the crystallization of amorphous silicon thin film.

• The Korean Journal of Ceramics
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 1997

It is identified that the diamond films grown o bias-treated (100) silicon showed different surface morphologies and film textures according to the initial applied dc bias voltage at the same growth condition. The highly oriented diamond film (HODF) was successfully grown on -200 V bias-treated silicon substrate in which the heteroepitaxial relation of $(100)_{dimond}//(100)_{si}\; and\; [110]_{diamond}//[110]_{si}$ was identified. On the contrary, the heteroepitaxial relation was considerably disturbed in the samples bias-voltage was a key factor in growing the highly oriented diamond film on (100) silicon substrate. Considering the experimental results, we proposed a new model about heteroepitaxial diamond growth on silicon, in which 9 diamond unit cell are matched with 4 silicon cells and the bond covalency of both atoms is satisfied via the intermediate layer at the interface as well.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.12-17
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• 2019

In this study, the Ag nano-dots structure and silicon nitride film were applied to the textured wafer surface to improve the light trapping effect of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell. Ag nano-dots structure was formed by performing a heat treatment for 30 minutes at 650℃ after the deposition of 10nm Ag thin film. Ag thin film deposition was performed using a thermal evaporator. The silicon nitride film was deposited by a Hot-wire chemical vapor deposition. The effect of light trapping was compared and analyzed through light reflectance measurements. Experimental results showed that the reflectivity increased by 0.5 ~ 1% under all nitride thickness conditions when Ag nano-dots structure was formed before nitride film deposition. In addition, when the Ag nano-dots structure is formed after deposition of the silicon nitride film, the reflectance is increased in the nitride film condition of 70 nm or more. When the HF treatment was performed for 60 seconds to improve the Ag nano-dot structure, the overall reflectance was improved, and the reflectance was 0.15% lower than that of the silicon nitride film-only sample at 90 nm silicon nitride film condition.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.20-25
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• 1995

Diamond films were prepared by a hot filament vapor deposition onto polycrystal silicon nitride substrates. Different kinds of silicon nitride containing CaO and $Fe_{2}O_{3}$ were manufactured to investigate the impurity effect of substrate on the morphology of diamond films and their wear behaviors. Nucleation rates and morphologies of diamond films deposited on various kinds of silicon nitride were compared. The highest nucleation rate was observed in a substrate containing 1% of CaO. Wear tests were performed with a silicon nitride ball on the disk geometry to investigate the tribological behavior of diamond film against silicon nitride. This study demonstrated that different morphologies of diamond film due to substrate impurities produced different wear behavior against silicon nitride.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.5 s.276
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• pp.359-365
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• 2005

Silicon nitride coating films with various ratios of nitrogen to silicon contents were prepared and characterized. The film was coated on silicon substrate by sputtering method with changing nitrogen gas flow rate in a chamber. The nitrogen to silicon ratio was found to have values in a range from 0 to 1.4. Coated film was characterized with scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis, nanoindentation scanning probe microscopy, x-ray photon spectrometry, and Raman spectrometry. Silicon nitride phase in all samples showed amorphous nature regardless of N/Si ratio. When N/Si ratio was 1.25, hardness and elastic modulus of silicon nitride film showed maximum with 22 GPa and 210 GPa, respectively. Those values decreased, when N/Si ratio was higher than 1.25. Raman spectrum showed that no silicon phase exist in the film. XPS result showed that the silicon-nitrogen bond was dominant way for atomic bonding in the film. The structure and property was explained with Random Bonding Model(RBM) which was consistent with the microstructure and chemistry analysis for the coating films.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.401-405
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• 2017

Because silicon thin film solar cells have a high absorption coefficient in visible light, they can absorb 90% of the solar spectrum in a $1-{\mu}m$-thick layer. Silicon thin film solar cells also have high transparency and are lightweight. Therefore, they can be used for building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. However, the contact electrode needs to be replaced for fabricating silicon thin film solar cells in BIPV systems, because most of the silicon thin film solar cells use metal electrodes that have a high reflectivity and low transmittance. In this study, we replace the conventional aluminum top electrode with a transparent aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) electrode, the band level of which matches well with that of the intrinsic layer of the silicon thin film solar cell and has high transmittance. We show that the AZO effectively replaces the top metal electrode and the bottom fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate without a noticeable degradation of the photovoltaic characteristics.