• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.138-143
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• 2007

The effects of texturing and anti-reflection coating on the reflection properties of multi-crystalline silicon solar cell have been investigated. The chemical solutions of alkaline and acidic etching solutions were used for texturing at the surface of multi-crystalline Si wafer. Experiments were performed with various temperature and time conditions in order to determine the optimized etching condition. Alkaline etching solution was found inadequate to the texturing of multi-crystalline Si due to its high reflectance of about 25%. The reflectance of Si wafer texturing with acidic etching solution showed a very low reflectance about 10%, which was attributed to the formation of homogeneous. Also, deposition of ITO anti-reflection coating reduced the reflectance of multi-crystalline si etched with acidic solution($HF+HNO_3$) to 2.6%.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.616-621
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• 2009

Reduction of optical losses in crystalline silicon solar cells by surface modification is one of the most important issues of silicon photovoltaics. Porous Si layers on the front surface of textured Si substrates have been investigated with the aim of improving the optical losses of the solar cells, because an anti-reflection coating(ARC) and a surface passivation can be obtained simultaneously in one process. We have demonstrated the feasibility of a very efficient porous Si ARC layer, prepared by a simple, cost effective, electrochemical etching method. Silicon p-type CZ (100) oriented wafers were textured by anisotropic etching in sodium carbonate solution. Then, the porous Si layers were formed by electrochemical etching in HF solutions. After that, the properties of porous Si in terms of morphology, structure and reflectance are summarized. The structure of porous Si layers was investigated with SEM. The formation of a nanoporous Si layer about 100nm thick on the textured silicon wafer result in a reflectance lower than 5% in the wavelength region from 500 to 900nm. Such a surface modification allows improving the Si solar cell characteristics. An efficiency of 13.4% is achieved on a monocrystalline silicon solar cell using the electrochemical technique.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.295-298
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• 2007

Reduction of optical losses in crystalline silicon solar cells by surface modification is one of the most important issues of silicon photovoltaics. Porous Si layers on the front surface of textured Si substrates have been investigated with the aim of improving the optical losses of the solar cells, because an anti-reflection coating(ARC) and a surface passivation can be obtained simultaneously in one process. We have demonstrated the feasibility of a very efficient porous Si ARC layer, prepared by a simple, cost effective, electrochemical etching method. Silicon p-type CZ (100) oriented wafers were textured by anisotropic etching in sodium carbonate solution. Then, the porous Si layers were formed by electrochemical etching in HF solutions. After that, the properties of porous Si in terms of morphology, structure and reflectance are summarized. The structure of porous Si layers was investigated with SEM. The formation of a nanoporous Si layer about 100nm thick on the textured silicon wafer result in a reflectance lower than 5% in the wavelength region from 500 to 900nm. Such a surface modification allows improving the Si solar cell characteristics. An efficiency of 13.4% is achieved on a monocrystalline silicon solar cell using the electrochemical technique.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.21-25
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• 2014

The texturing is one of the most important processes for high efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells. The rear side flatness of silicon solar cell is very important for increasing the light reflectance and forming uniform back surface field(BSF) region in manufacturing high efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells. We investigated texturing difference between front and rear side of wafer by texturing of two adhered wafers. As a result, the flatter rear side was obtained by forming less pyramid size compared to the front side and improved reflectance of long wavelength and back surface field(BSF) region were also achieved. Therefore, the texturing of two adhered wafers can be expected to improve the efficiency of silicon solar cells due to increased short circuit current(Isc).

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.30-39
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• 2013

Multi-crystalline silicon solar cells is not exist a specific crystal direction different from single crystalline silicon solar cells. In functional materials, therefore, isotropic wet etching of mc-Si solar cell is easy the acid solution rather than the alkaline solution. The reflectance of wet texturing process is about 25% and the reflectance of RIE texturing process is achieved less than 10%. In addition, wet texturing has many disadvantages as well as reflectance. So wet texturing process has been replaced by a RIE texturing process. In order to apply BIPV, RIE and wet textured multi-crystalline silicon solar cell modules was manufactured by different kind of EVA sheet. Moreover, in case of BIPV, the short circuit current characteristics according to the angle of incidence is more important, because the installation of BIPV is fixed location. In this study, we has measured SEM image and I-V curve of RIE and wet textured silicon solar cell and PV module. Also we has analyzed quantum efficiency characteristics of RIE and wet textured silicon solar cell for PV modules depending on incidence angle.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.314-318
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• 2010

We fabricated a plasma texturing for multi-crystalline silicon cells using reactive ion etching (RIE). Multi-crystalline Si cells have not benefited from the cost-effective wet-chemical texturing processes that reduce front surface reflectance on single-crystal wafers. Elimination of plasma damage has been achieved while keeping front reflectance to extremely low levels. We will discuss reflectance, quantum efficiency and conversion efficiency for multi-crystalline Si solar cell by each RIE process conditions.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.487-499
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• 2009

Atmospheric correction of satellite measurements is a major step to estimate accurate surface reflectance of solar spectrum channels. In this study, Simplified Method for the Atmospheric Correction (SMAC) radiative transfer model used to retrieve surface reflectance from MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer) top of atmosphere (TOA) reflectance. It is fast and simple atmospheric correction method, so it uses for work site operation in various satellite. This study attempts a test of accuracy of SMAC through a sensitivity test to detected error sources and to improve accuracy of surface reflectance using SMAC. The results of SMAC as compared with MODIS surface reflectance (MOD09) was represented that low accuracy ($R^2\;=\;0.6196$, Root Means Square Error (RMSE) = 0.00031, bias = - 0.0859). Thus sensitivity analysis of input parameters and coefficients was conducted to searching error sources. Among the input parameters, Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) is the most influence input parameter. In order to modify AOD term in SMAC code, Stepwise multiple regression was performed with testing and remove variable in three stages with independent variables of AOD at 550nm, solar zenith angle, viewing zenith angle. Surface reflectance estimation by using Newly proposed AOD term in the study showed that improve accuracy ($R^2\;=\;0.827$, RMSE = 0.00672, bias = - 0.000762).

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.83-91
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• 2003

There are terrestrial signatures of the solar activity cycle in ice core data (Ram & Stoltz 1999), but the variations in the sun's irradiance over the cycle seem too small to account for the signature (Lean 1997; Goode & Dziembowski 2003). Thus, one would expect that the signature must arise from an indirect effect(s) of solar activity. Such an indirect effect would be expected to manifest itself in the earth's reflectance. Further, the earth's climate depends directly on the albedo. Continuous observations of the earthshine have been carried out from Big Bear Solar Observatory since December 1998, with some more sporadic measurements made during the years 1994 and 1995. We have determined the annual albedos both from our observations and from simulations utilizing the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) scene model and various datasets for the cloud cover, as well as snow and ice cover. With these, we look for inter-annual and longer-term changes in the earth's total reflectance, or Bond albedo. We find that both our observations and simulations indicate that the albedo was significantly higher during 1994-1995 (activity minimum) than for the more recent period covering 1999-2001 (activity maximum). However, the sizes of the changes seem somewhat discrepant. Possible indirect solar influences on the earth's Bond albedo are discussed to emphasize that our earthshine data are already sufficiently precise to detect, if they occur, any meaningful changes in the earth's reflectance. Still greater precision will occur as we expand our single site observations to a global network.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.245-248
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• 2011

Many researches have been carried out to improve light absorption in the crystalline silicon solar cell fabrication. The rear reflection is applied to increase the path length of light, resulting in the light absorption enhancement and thus the efficiency improvement mainly due to increase in short circuit current. In this paper, we manufactured the silicon solar cell using the mono crystalline silicon wafers with $156{\times}156mm^2$, 0.5~3.0 ${\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ of resistivity and p-type. After saw damage removal, the dielectric film ($SiN_x$)on the back surface was deposited, followed by surface texturing in the KOH solution. It resulted in single-side texturing wafer. Then the dielectric film was removed in the HF solution. The silicon wafers were doped with phosphorus by $POCl_3$ with the sheet resistance 50 ${\Omega}/{\Box}$ and then the silicon nitride was deposited on the front surface by the PECVD with 80nm thickness. The electrodes were formed by screen-printing with Ag and Al paste for front and back surface, respectively. The reflectance and transmittance for the single-sided and double-sided textured wafers were compared. The double-sided textured wafer showed higher reflectance and lower transmittance at the long wavelength region, compared to single-sided. The completed crystalline silicon solar cells with different back surface texture showed the conversion efficiency of 17.4% for the single sided and 17.3% for the double sided. The efficiency improvement with single-sided textured solar cell resulted from reflectance increase on back surface and light absorption enhancement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.419-419
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• 2016

High efficiency silicon solar cell requires the textured front surface to reduce reflectance and to improve the light trapping. In case of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell, wet etching with alkaline solution is widespread. However, the alkali texturing methods are ineffective in case of multi-crystalline silicon wafer due to grain boundary of random crystallographic orientation. The acid texturing method is generally used in multi-crystalline silicon wafer to reduce the surface reflectance. However the acid textured solar cell gives low short-circuit current due to high reflectivity while it improves the open-circuit voltage. To reduce the reflectivity of multi-crystalline silicon wafer, double texturing method with combination of acid and reactive ion etching is an attractive technical solution. In this paper, we have studied to optimize RIE experimental condition with change of RF power (100W, 150W, 200W, 250W, 300W). During experiment, the gas ratio of SF6 and O2 was fixed as 30:10.