• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.120-125
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• 2002

Si-wafers for solar cells were cast in a size of $50{\times}46{\times}0.5{\textrm}{mm}^3$ by vacuum casting method. The graphite mold coated by BN powder, which was to prevent the reaction of carbon with the molten silicon, was used. Without coating, the wetting and reaction of Si melt to graphite mold was very severe. In the case of BN coating, SiC was formed in the shape of tiny islands at the surface of Si wafer by the reaction between Si-melt and carbon of the graphite mold on the high temperature. The grain size was about 1 mm. The efficiency of Si solar cell was lower than that of Si solar cell fabricated on commercial single and poly crystalline Si wafer. The reason of low efficiency was discussed.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.243-248
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• 2012

In this study, The report analysed the characteristics of power drop and damage of surface in solar cell through high temperature and humidity test. The solar cells were tested during the 1000hr in $85^{\circ}C$ temperature and 85% humidity conditions, that excerpted standard of PV Module(KS C IEC-61215). An analysis of the cell surface through EL(Electroluminescence), the cell has partly change of surface in yearly. Single-crystalline Solar cell efficiency is decreased from 17.7% to 15.6% and decreasing rate is 11.9%. On the other hand, Poly-crystalline Solar cell efficiency is decreased from 15.5% to 14.0% and decreasing rate is 9.3%. A comparison of the fill factor for analysis of electro characteristic in yearly, Single-crystalline Solar cell efficiency is decreased from 78.7% to 78.1% and decreasing rate is 4.7%. On the other hand, Poly-crystalline Solar cell efficiency is decreased from 78.1% to 76.7% and decreasing rate is 1.8%. Single-crystalline has more bigger power drop than poly-crystalline by the silicon purity and silicon atom arrangement. Also, FF decreasing rate has more bigger drop than efficiency decreasing rate for the reason that the damage of surface by exterior environmental factor is the more influence in cell than other reason that is decreasing FF by damage of p-n junction.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2007

Photovoltaic (PV) technology permits the transformation of solar light directly into electricity. For the last five years, the photovoltaic sector has experienced one of the highest growth rates worldwide (over 30% in 2006) and for the next 20 years, the average production growth rate is estimated to be between 27% and 34% annually. Currently the cost of electricity produced using photovoltaic technology is above that for traditional energy sources, but this is expected to fall with technological progress and more efficient production processes. A large scale production of solar grade silicon material of high purity could supply the world demand at a reasonably lower cost. A shift from crystalline silicon to thin film is expected in the future. The technical limit for the conversion efficiency is about 30%. It is assumed that in 2030 thin films will have a major market share (90%) and the share of crystalline cells will have decreased to 10%. Our research at Sungkyunkwan University of South Korea is confined to crystalline silicon solar cell technology. We aim to develop a technology for low cost production of high efficiency silicon solar cell. We have successfully fabricated silicon solar cells of efficiency more than 16% starting with multicrystalline wafers and that of efficiency more than 17% on single crystalline wafers with screen printing metallization. The process of transformation from the first generation to second generation solar cell should be geared up with the entry of new approaches but still silicon seems to remain as the major material for solar cells for many years to come. Local barriers to the implementation of this technology may also keep continuing up to year 2010 and by that time the cost of the solar cell generated power is expected to be 60 cent per watt. Photovoltaic source could establish itself as a clean and sustainable energy alternate to the ever depleting and polluting non-renewable energy resource.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.47-51
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• 2013

Current research trends of solar cells has focused on the high conversion efficiency and low-cost production technology. Passivation technology that can be easily adapted to mass production. Therefore, this study conducted experiments with aim of the following two methods for the fabrication of high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells. In the first task, an attempt is formation of local Al-BSF to a number of locally doped dots to increase the conversion efficiency of solar cells to reduce the loss of $V_{oc}$ overcome. The second major task, rear surface apply in $Al_2O_3/SiN_x$ stack layer, $Al_2O_3$ prominent negative fixed charge characteristics. As the result of task, Local Al-BSF and $Al_2O_3/SiN_x$ stack layer applied to the p-type single crystalline silicon solar cells, the average $V_{oc}$ of 644mV, $I_{sc}$ of 918mV and conversion efficiency of 18.70% were obtained.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.4-5
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• 2006

This paper represents modeling and optimization techniques for solar cell process on single-crystalline float zone (FZ) wafers with high efficiency; There were the four significant processes : i)emitter formation by diffusion, anti-reflection-coating (ARC) with silicon nitride using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD); iii)screen-printing for front and back metallization; and iv)contact formation by firing. In order to increase the performance of solar cells, the contact formation process is modeled and optimized. This paper utilizes the design of experiments (DOE) in contact formation to reduce process time, fabrication costs. The experiments were designed by using central composite design which is composed of $2^4$ factorial design augmented by 8 axial points with three center points. After contact formation process, the efficiency of the solar cell is modeled using neural networks. This model is used to analyse the characteristics of the process, and to optimize the process condition using genetic algorithms (GA). Finally, find optimal recipe for solar cell efficiency.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.243-247
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• 2012

The paper focuses on an anti-reflection (AR) coating deposited by PECVD in silicon solar cell fabrication. AR coating is effective to reduce the reflection of the light on the silicon wafer surface and then increase substantially the solar cell conversion efficiency. In this work, we carried out experiments to optimize double AR coating layer with silicon nitride and silicon oxide for the silicon solar cells. The p-type mono crystalline silicon wafers with $156{\times}156mm^2$ area, 0.5-3 ${\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ resistivity, and $200{\mu}m$ thickness were used. All wafers were textured in KOH solution, doped with $POCl_3$ and removed PSG before ARC process. The optimized thickness of each ARC layer was calculated by theoretical equation. For the double layer of AR coating, silicon nitride layer was deposited first using $SiH_4$ and $NH_3$, and then silicon oxide using $SiH_4$ and $N_2O$. As a result, reflectance of $SiO_2/SiN_x$ layer was lower than single $SiN_x$ and then it resulted in increase of short-circuit current and conversion efficiency. It indicates that the double AR coating layer is necessary to obtain the high efficiency solar cell with PECVD already used in commercial line.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.119-123
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• 2013

Most of the world's solar cells in photovoltaic industry are currently fabricated using crystalline silicon. Czochralski-grown silicon crystals are more expensive than multicrystalline silicon crystals. The future of solar-grade Czochralski-grown silicon crystals crucially depends on whether it is usable for the mass-production of high-efficiency solar cells or not. It is generally believed that the main obstacle for making solar-grade Czochralski-grown silicon crystals a perfect high-efficiency solar cell material is presently light-induced degradation problem. In this work, the substitution of boron with gallium in p-type silicon single crystal is studied as an alternative to reduce the extent of lifetime degradation. The diamond-wire sawing technology is employed to slice the silicon ingot. In this paper, the quality of the diamond wire-sawn gallium-doped silicon wafers is studied from the chemical, electrical and structural points of view. It is found that the characteristic of gallium-doped silicon wafers including texturing behavior and surface metallic impurities are same as that of conventional boron-doped Czochralski crystals.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.47-53
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• 2014

Three kinds of crystalline silicon have been used for the solar cell grade. First of all, single crystalline silicon is the main subject to enhance the production yield. Most of the efforts are focused on the control of the melt-crystal interface shape affected by the crystal-crucible rotation rate. The main subject in the multi-crystalline silicon ingot is the contamination control. Faster Ar gas flow above the melt surface will lower the carbon contamination in the crystal. And also, twin boundary electrically inactive is found to be more effective than grain boundary for the improvement of the MCLT. In the case of mono-like silicon material, propagation of the multi-crystalline silicon growing from the inner side crucible is the problem lowering the portion of the single crystalline part at the center of the ingot. Crystal growing apparatus giving higher cooling rate at the bottom and lower cooling rate at the side crucible was suggested as the optimum solution obtaining higher quality of the mono-like silicon ingot. Proper application of the seeds at the bottom of the crucible would be one of the solutions.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.246-251
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• 2014

Recent studies have shown methods of improving solar cell efficiency. Especially on single crystalline silicon wafer which is high-efficiency solar cell material that has been widely studied. Interstitial oxygen (Oi) is the main impurity in the Czochralski (Cz) growing method, and excess of this can form precipitates during cell fabrication. We have demonstrated the effect of Oi impurity and oxygen precipitation concentration of the wafer on Cz-silicon solar cell efficiency. The result showed a decrease in cell efficiency as Oi and oxygen precipitation increase. Moreover, we have found that the critical point of [Oi] to bring higher cell efficiency is at 14.5 ppma in non-existent Bulk Micro Defect (BMD).

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.195-196
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• 2008

Doping depth, doping concentration, and resistivity of crystalline silicon solar cell are variables which take important portion in cell's efficiency. To get highly efficient solar cell, PC1D is used to calculate $I_{sc}$, $V_{oc}$, and $P_{max}$. Depth factor, peak doping, and base resistivity was used as variables. As a result, the optimized value of emitter peak doping is $1\times10^{19}cm^{-3}$, depth factor is $1{\mu}m$, and base $\rho$ is $ 0.1\Omega$-cm. Under the optimized condition, the solar cell gets efficiency 19.03(%).