• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.863-864
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• 2011

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.111-114
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• 2008

We studied the influence of nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) thin film thickness on top gate nc-Si thin film transistor (TFT) fabricated at $180^{\circ}C$. The nc-Si thickness affects the characteristics of nc-Si TFT due to the nc-Si growth similar to a columnar. As the thickness of nc-Si increases from 40 nm to 200 nm, the grain size was increased from 20 nm to 40 nm. Having a large grain size, the thick nc-Si TFT surpasses the thin nc-Si TFT in terms of electrical characteristics such as field effect mobility. The channel resistance was decreased due to growth of the grain. We obtained the experimental results that the field effect mobility of the fabricated devices of which nc-Si thickness is 60, 90 and 130 nm are 26, 77 and $119\;cm^2/Vsec$, respectively. The leakage current, however, is increased from $7.2{\times}10^{-10}$ to $1.9{\times}10^{-8}\;A$ at $V_{GS}=-4.4\;V$ when the nc-Si thickness increases. It is originated from the decrease of the channel resistance.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.108-112
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• 2012

Crystalline silicon solar cell remains the major player in the photovoltaic marketplace with 90 % of the market, despite the development of a variety of thin film technologies. Silicon's excellent efficiency, stability, material abundance and low toxicity have helped to maintain its position of dominance. However, the cost of silicon photovoltaic remains a major barrier to reducing the cost of silicon photovoltaics. Using the crystalline silicon wafer with thinner thickness is the promising way for cost and material reduction in the solar cell production. However, the thinner thickness of silicon wafer is, the worse bow phenomenon is induced. The bow phenomenon is observed when two or more layers of materials of different temperature expansion coefficiencies are in contact, in this case silicon and aluminum. In this paper, the solar cells were fabricated with different thicknesses of Al layer in order to reduce the bow phenomenon. With lower paste applications, we observed that the bow could be reduced by up to 40% of the largest value with 130 micron thickness of the wafer even though the conversion efficiency decrease of 0.5 % occurred. Since the bowed wafers lead to unacceptable yield losses during the module construction, the reduction of bow is indispensable on thin crystalline silicon solar cell. In this work, we have studied on the counterbalance between the bow and conversion efficiency and also suggest the formation of enough back surface field (BSF) with thinner Al paste application.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.781-790
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• 2001

The effects of silicon substrate thickness on the performance of thin film PZT IR detectors are theoretically and experimentally investigated. Theoretical analyses show that the pyroelectric current responsivity of a detector without a silicon substrate is about two orders higher than that of a detector with a 450${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ thick silicon substrate. At a fixed chopping frequency of 100Hz, the pyroelectric current responsivity decreases exponentially with increasing silicon substrate thickness up to 50${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, and above 50${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ the decreasing rate become slow. The thinner the silicon substrate is, the less the thermal loss by conduction is , and thus the higher responsivity is resulted. To verify the theoretical analyses, micromachined PZT thin film IR detectors with different silicon substrate thicknesses are fabricated and characterized. The theoretical and experimental results show the similar tendencies for all silicon substrates with varying thickness.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2021

In this study, Ag was deposited to investigate its applicability as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate after forming a grass-type black silicon structure through maskless reactive ion etching. Grass-structured black silicon with heights of 2 - 7 ㎛ was formed at radio-frequency (RF) power of 150 - 170 W. The process pressure was 250 mTorr, the O₂/SF₆ gas ratio was 15/37.5, and the processing time was 10 - 20 min. When the processing time was increased by more than 20 min, the self-masking of Si_xO_yF_z did not occur, and the black silicon structure was therefore not formed. Raman response characteristics were measured based on the Ag thickness deposited on a black silicon substrate. As the Ag thickness increased, the characteristic peak intensity increased. When the Ag thickness deposited on the black silicon substrate increased from 40 to 80 nm, the Raman response intensity at a Raman wavelength of 1507 / cm increased from 8.2 × 10³ to 25 × 10³ cps. When the Ag thickness was 150 nm, the increase declined to 30 × 10³ cps and showed a saturation tendency. When the RF power increased from 150 to 170 W, the response intensity at a 1507/cm Raman wavelength slightly increased from 30 × 10³ to 33 × 10³ cps. However, when the RF power was 200 W, the Raman response intensity decreased significantly to 6.2 × 10³ cps.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.spc3
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• pp.194-198
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• 2012

Crystalline silicon solar cell remains the major player in the photovoltaic marketplace with 80% of the market, despite the development of various thin film technologies. Silicon's excellent efficiency, stability, material abundance and low toxicity have helped to maintain its position of dominance. However, the cost of silicon materials remains a major barrier to reducing the cost of silicon photovoltaics. Using the crystalline silicon wafer with thinner thickness is the promising way for cost and material reduction in the solar cell production. However, the thinner the silicon wafer is, the worse bow phenomenon is induced. The bow phenomenon is observed when two or more layers of materials with different temperature expansion coefficiencies are in contact, in this case silicon and aluminum. In this paper, the solar cells were fabricated with different thicknesses of Al layer in order to reduce the bow phenomenon. With less amount of paste applications, we observed that the bow could be reduced by up to 40% of the largest value with 120 micron thickness of the wafer even though the conversion efficiency decrease by 0.5% occurred. Since the bowed wafers lead to unacceptable yield losses during the module construction, the reduction of bow is indispensable on thin crystalline silicon solar cell. In this work, we have studied on the counterbalance between the bow and conversion efficiency and also suggest the formation of enough back surface field (BSF) with thinner Al layer application.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.9
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• pp.823-828
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• 2013

To reduce the cost per watt of photovoltaic power, it is important to reduce the cell thickness of crystalline silicon solar cells. As the thickness of the silicon layer is reduced, two distinctive thermal expansion rates between the silicon and the aluminum layer induce bowing in a solar cell. With a thinner silicon layer, the bowing distance grows exponentially. Excessive bowing could damage the silicon wafer. In this study, we tried to measure an irregularly curved silicon solar cell more accurately using a 3D image scanner. For the detailed analysis of the three-dimensional bowing shape, a least square fit was applied to the point data from the scanned image. It has been found that the bowing distance and shape distortion increase with a decrease in the thickness of the silicon layer. An Ag strip on top of the silicon layer can reduce the bowing distance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2000.05b
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• pp.7-12
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• 2000

This paper presents the electrochemical etch-stop characteristics of single-crystal silicon in a tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide(TMAH):isopropyl alcohol(IPA):pyrazine solution. Addition of pyrazine to a TMAH:IPA etchant increases the etch-rate of (100) silicon, thus the elapsed time for etch-stop was shortened. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of n- and p-type silicon in a TMAH:IPA:pyrazine solution were obtained, respectively. Open circuit potential(OCP) and passivation potential(PP) of n- and p-type silicon, respectively, were obtained and applied potential was selected between n- and p-type silicon PP. The electrochemical etch-stop is applied to the fabrication of 801 microdiaphragms having $20{\mu}m$ thickness on a 5-inch silicon wafer. The averge thicknesses of 801 microdiaphragms fabricated on the one wafer were $20.03{\mu}m$ and standard deviation was ${\pm}0.26{\mu}m$. The silicon surface of the etch-stopped microdiaphragm was extremely flat without noticeable taper or other nonuniformities. The benefits of the electrochemical etch-stop in a TMAH:IPA:pyrazine solution become apparent when reproducibility in the microdiaphragm thickness for mass production is considered. These results indicate that the electrochemical etch-stop in a TMAH:IPA:pyrazine solution provides a powerful and versatile alternative process for fabricating high-yield silicon microdiaphragms.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.393-396
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• 1999

A circuit model of silicon substrate coupling for CMOS RF-IC design is developed. Its characteristics are analyzed by using a simple RC mesh model in order to investigate substrate coupling. The coupling effects due to the substrate were characterized with substrate resistivity, oxide thickness, substrate thickness. and physical distance. Thereby the silicon substrate effects are analytically investigated and verified with simulation. The analysis and simulation of the model have excellent agreements with MEDICI(2D device simulator) simulation results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.807-808
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• 2012