• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.775-779
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• 2006

In this study, sputtered $Al_2O_3$ thin films were evaluated as a passivation layer in the process of InGaN-based blue LEDs in order to improve the brightness of LED lamps. In terms of packaged LED lamps, lamps with $Al_2O_3$ passivation layer emanated higher brightness than those with $SiO_2$ passivation layer, and LED lamps with 90 nm $Al_2O_3$ passivation layer were the brightest among four kinds of lamps. Although lamps with $Al_2O_3$ passivation had a slight increase in operating voltage, their brightness was improved about 13.6 % compare to the lamps made of conventional LEDs without the changes of emitting wavelength.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.111-115
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• 2015

To improve the efficiency of the Si solar cell, high minority carrier life time is required. Therefore, the passivation technology is important to eliminate point defects on the silicon surface, causing the loss of minority carrier recombination. PECVD or post-annealing of thermally-grown $SiO_2$ is commonly used to form the passivation layer, but a high-temperature process and low thermal stability is a critical factor of low minority carrier lifetime. In this study, atomic layer deposition was used to grow the $Al_2O_3$ passivation layer at low temperature process. $Al_2O_3$ was selected as a passivation layer which has a low surface recombination velocity because of the fixed charge density. For the high charge density, an improved minority carrier lifetime, and a low surface recombination, nitrogen was doped in the $Al_2O_3$ thin film and the improvement of passivation was studied.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.420-423
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• 2008

The characteristics of $Al_2O_3/Ag/Al_2O_3$ multilayer passivaton prepared by twin target sputtering (TTS) system for organic light emitting diodes. The $Al_2O_3/Ag/Al_2O_3$ multilayer thin film passivation on a PET substrate had a high transmittance of 86.44 % and low water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of $0.011\;g/m^2$-day due to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Ag interlayer and effective multilayer structure for preventing the intrusion of water vapor. Using synchrotron x-ray scattering and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) examinations, we investigated the growth behavior of Ag layer on the $Al_2O_3$ layer to explain the SPR effect of the Ag layer. This indicates that an $Al_2O_3/Ag/Al_2O_3$ multilayer passivation is a promising thin film passivation scheme for organic based flexible optoelectronics.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.93-93
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• 2009

실리콘 태양전지의 효율 향상을 위한 노력의 일환으로 결정질 실리콘 웨이퍼 표면passivation 물질 중 Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)을 이용하여 증착한 $Al_2O_3$ 박막에 대한 관심이 증가하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 $Al_2O_3$ 박막의 증착 전 실리콘 웨이퍼의 산화막 두께에 따른 passivation 효과에 대해서 연구하였다. 실리콘 산화막은 $HNO_3$ 용액을 사용하여 화학적으로 생성시켰으며 $HNO_3$ 용액과의 반응 시간을 조절하여 실리콘 산화막의 두께를 조절하였다. 실리콘 산화막 생성 후 ALD로 $Al_2O_3$ 박막을 증착하였으며 증착 후 $N_2$ 분위기에서 annealing 하였다. Annealing 후 passivation 효과는 Quasi-Steady-State Photo Conductance를 사용하여 minority carrier의 lifetime을 측정하였다. Capacitance-Voltage measurement, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Ellipsometry를 사용하여 실리콘 산화막의 두께에 따른 $Al_2O_3$ 박막의 passivation 효과를 분석하였다.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.754-759
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• 2013

Aluminum oxide($Al_2O_3$) film deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known to supply excellent surface passivation properties on crystalline Si surfaces. Since $Al_2O_3$ has fixed negative charge, it forms effective surface passivation by field effect passivation on the rear side in p-type silicon solar cell. However, $Al_2O_3$ layer formed by ALD process needs very long process time, which is not applicable in mass production of silicon solar cells. In this paper, plasma-assisted ALD(PA-ALD) was applied to form $Al_2O_3$ to reduce the process time. $Al_2O_3$ synthesized by ALD on c-Si (100) wafers contains a very thin interfacial $SiO_2$ layer, which was confirmed by FTIR and TEM. To improve passivation quality of $Al_2O_3$ layer, the deposition temperature was changed in range of $150{\sim}350^{\circ}C$, then the annealing temperature and time were varied. As a result, the silicon wafer with aluminum oxide film formed in $250^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$ and 10 min for the deposition temperature, the annealing temperature and time, respectively, showed the best lifetime of 1.6ms. We also observed blistering with nanometer size during firing of $Al_2O_3$ deposited on p-type silicon.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.63-67
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• 2017

Aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$) film deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known to supply excellent surface passivation properties on crystalline Si surface. The quality of passivation layer is important for high-efficiency silicon solar cell. double-layer structures have many advantages over single-layer materials. $Al_2O_3/SiN_X$ passivation stacks have been widely adopted for high- efficiency silicon solar cells. The first layer, $Al_2O_3$, passivates the surface, while $SiN_X$ acts as a hydrogen source that saturates silicon dangling bonds during annealing treatment. We explored the properties on passivation film of $Al_2O_3/SiN_X$ stack layer with changing the conditions. For the post annealing temperature, it was found that $500^{\circ}C$ is the most suitable temperature to improvement surface passivation.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.233-237
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• 2015

Silicon oxynitride that can be deposited two times faster than general SiNx:H layer was applied to fabricate the passivation protection layer of atomic layer deposition (ALD) $Al_2O_3$. The protection layer is deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition to protect $Al_2O_3$ passivation layer from a high temperature metallization process for contact firing in screen-printed silicon solar cell. In this study, we studied passivation performance of ALD $Al_2O_3$ film as functions of process temperature and RF plasma effect in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition system. $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks coated at $400^{\circ}C$ showed higher lifetime values in the as-stacked state. In contrast, a high quality $Al_2O_3$/SiON stack was obtained with a plasma power of 400 W and a capping-deposition temperature of $200^{\circ}C$ after the firing process. The best lifetime was achieved with stack films fired at $850^{\circ}C$. These results demonstrated the potential of the $Al_2O_3/SiON$ passivated layer for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.197-200
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• 2014

We investigated the influence of blistering on $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks and $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks passivation layers. $Al_2O_3$ film provides outstanding Si surface passivation quality. $Al_2O_3$ film as the rear passivation layer of a p-type Si solar cell is usually stacked with a capping layer, such as $SiO_2$, SiNx, and SiON films. These capping layers protect the thin $Al_2O_3$ layer from an Al electrode during the annealing process. We compared $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks and $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks through surface morphology and minority carrier lifetime after annealing processes at $450^{\circ}C$ and $850^{\circ}C$. As a result, the $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks were observed to produce less blister phenomenon than $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks. This can be explained by the differences in the H species content. In the process of depositing SiNx film, the rich H species in $NH_3$ source are diffused to the $Al_2O_3$ film. On the other hand, less hydrogen diffusion occurs in SiON film as it contains less H species than SiNx film. This blister phenomenon leads to an increase insurface defect density. Consequently, the $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks had a higher minority carrier lifetime than the $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.462-462
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• 2014

The effect of rear passivation for passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) using ozone and H2O oxidant of atomic layer deposited (ALD) Al2O3 was studied by post-annealing in N2 and forming gas ambients. Rear surface of PERC solar cell was passivated by Al2O3 grown by ALD with ozone and H2O oxidant. Al2O3 grown by ALD with ozone oxidant has been known to have many advantages, such as lower interface defects, low leakage current density. Its passivation quality is better than Al2O3 with H2O. Al2O3 layer with 10 nm and 20 nm thickness was grown at $150^{\circ}C$ with ozone oxidant and at $250^{\circ}C$ with H2O oxidant. And then each samples were post-annealled at $450^{\circ}C$ in N2 ambients and at $850^{\circ}C$ in forming gas ambients. The passivation quality was investigated by measuring the minority carrier lifetime respectively. We examined atomic layer deposited Al2O3 such as growth rate, film density, thickness, negative fixed charge density at AlOx/Si interface, and reflectance. The influences of process temperature and heat treatment were investigated using Sinton (WCT-120) by Quasi-Steady State Photoconductance (QSSPC) mode. Ozone-based ALD Al2O3 film shows the best carrier lifetime at lower deposition temperature than H2O-based ALD.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.262-266
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• 2020

In this paper, we investigated the effect of the passivation stack with Al₂O₃, hydrogenated silicon nitride (SiN_x:H) stack and Al₂O₃, silicon oxynitride (SiON_x) stack in the n type bifacial solar cell on monocrystalline silicon. SiNx:H and SiON_x films were deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on the Al₂O₃ thin film deposited by thermal atomic layer deposition. We focus on passivation properties of the two stack structure after laser ablation process in order to improve bifaciality of the cell. Our results showed SiN_x:H with Al₂O₃ stack is 10 mV higher in implied open circuit voltage and 60 ㎲ higher in minority carrier lifetime than SiON_x with Al₂O₃ stack at Ni silicide formation temperature for 1.8% open area ratio. This can be explained by hydrogen passivation at the Al₂O₃/Si interface and Al₂O₃ layer of laser damaged area during annealing.