• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.2909-2912
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• 2010

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c$-Si:H) thin film for solar cells is prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and physical properties of the ${\mu}c$-Si:H p-layer has been investigated. With respect to stable efficiency, this film is expected to surpass the performance of conventional amorphous silicon based solar cells and very soon be a close competitor to other thin film photovoltaic materials. Silicon in various structural forms has a direct effect on the efficiency of solar cell devices with different electron mobility and photon conversion. A Raman microscope is adopted to study the degree of crystallinity of Si film by analyzing the integrated intensity peaks at 480, 510 and $520\;cm^{-1}$, which corresponds to the amorphous phase (a-Si:H), microcrystalline (${\mu}c$-Si:H) and large crystals (c-Si), respectively. The crystal volume fraction is calculated from the ratio of the crystalline and the amorphous phase. The results are compared with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) for the determination of crystallinity factor. Optical properties such as refractive index, extinction coefficient, and band gap are studied with reflectance spectra.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.283-288
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• 2004

We have fabricated MIM capacitors for MMIC applications, with capacitances as high as 600pF/$\textrm{mm}^2$ and excellent electrical properties of the insulator layer. Silicon nitride thin film is the desirable material for MMIC capacitor fabrication. Standard MIM capacitance in MMIC is 300pF/$\textrm{mm}^2$ with an insulator layer thickness of more than 2000$\AA$. However, capacitors with thin insulator layers have breakdown voltages as low as 20V. We have deposited insulator layers by PECVD in our MIM structure with an air bridge between the top metal and the contact pad. The PECVD process was optimized for fabricating the desired capacitors to be used in MMIC. Silicon nitride(Si$_{x}$N$_{y}$) thin films of about 1000$\AA$ thick show capacitances of about 600pF/$\textrm{mm}^2$, and breakdown voltages above 70V at 100nA.A.A.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.168-171
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• 2005

Thickness optimization of heavily doped p-type seeding layer was studied to improve performance of thin film silicon solar cell. We used liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) to grow active layer of $25{\MU}m$ thickness on p+ seeding layer. The cells with p+ seeding layer of $10{\mu}m\;to\;50{\mu}m$ thickness were fabricated. The highest efficiency of a cell is $12.95\%$, with Voc=633mV, $Jsc=26.5mA/cm^2,\;FF=77.15\%$. The $P^+$ seeding layer of the cell is $20{\mu}m$, thick. As thicker seeding layer than $20{\mu}m$, the performance of the cell was degraded. The results demonstrate that the part of the recombination current is due to the heavily doped seeding layer. Thickness of heavily doped p-type seeding layer was optimized to $20{\mu}m$. The performance of solar cell is expected to improve with the incorporation of light trapping as texturing and AR coating.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.128.2-128.2
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• 2011

스테인레스 스틸 유연기판 위에 플라즈마 화학기상 증착법 (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition)을 이용하여 nip 구조의 미세결정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지 (microcrystalline silicon thin film solar cell)를 제조하고 i ${\mu}c$-Si:H광 흡수층과 p ${\mu}c$-Si:H 사이에 i a-Si:H 버퍼 층을 삽입하여 i/p 계면특성을 개선하고 이에 따른 태양전지 성능특성 변화를 조사하였다. ${\mu}c$-Si:H 박막으로 이루어진 i/p 계면에서의 구조적, 전기적 결함은 태양전지 내에서 생성된 캐리어의 재결합과 shunt resistance 감소를 초래하여 개방전압 (open circuit voltage) 및 곡선 인자 (fill factor)를 감소시키는 것으로 알려졌다. 제조된 미세결정질 실리콘 박막 태양전지는 SUS/Ag/ZnO:Al/n ${\mu}c$-Si:H/i ${\mu}c$-Si:H/p ${\mu}c$-Si:H 구조로 제작되었으며 i/p 계면 사이의 i a-Si;H 버퍼층 두께를 변화시키고 이에 따른 태양전지의 특성을 조사하였다. 태양전지의 구조적, 전기적 특성 변화는 Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), UV-visible-nIR spectrometry, Photo IV와 Dark IV를 통하여 조사하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.52-52
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• 2011

A novel deposition process for n-type nanocrystalline silicon (n-type nc-Si) thin films at room temperature has been developed by adopting the neutral beam assisted chemical vapor deposition (NBa-CVD). During formation of n-type nc-Si thin film by the NBa-CVD process with silicon reflector electrode at room temperature, the energetic particles could induce enhance doping efficiency and crystalline phase in polymorphous-Si thin films without additional heating on substrate; The dark conductivity and substrate temperature of P-doped polymorphous~nano crystalline silicon thin films increased with increasing the reflector bias. The NB energy heating substrate(but lower than $80^{\circ}C$ and increase doping efficiency. This low temperature processed doped nano-crystalline can address key problem in applications from flexible display backplane thin film transistor to flexible solar cell.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.305-308
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• 2004

We present a novel process for the ultra low temperature (<150$^{\circ}C$) polycrystalline silicon (ULTPS) TFT for the flexible display applications on the plastic substrate. The sequential lateral solidification (SLS) was used for the crystallization of the amorphous silicon film deposited by rf magnetron sputtering, resulting in high mobility polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) film. The gate dielectric was composed of thin $SiO_2$ formed by plasma oxidation and $Al_2O_3$ deposited by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition. The breakdown field of gate dielectric on poly-Si film showed above 6.3 MV/cm. Laser activation reduced the source/drain resistance below 200 ${\Omega}$/ㅁ for n layer and 400 ${\Omega}$/ㅁ for p layer. The fabricated ULTPS TFT shows excellent performance with mobilities of 114 $cm^2$/Vs (nMOS) and 42 $cm^2$/Vs (pMOS), on/off current ratios of 4.20${\times}10^6$ (nMOS) and 5.7${\times}10^5$ (PMOS).

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 1995

Abstract The principal factor affecting the increased penetration of photovoltaics into the marketplace is cost. For traditional crystalline silicon modules, half of the cost is that of the silicon wafers. As a result much effort has centered on reducing this cost by the use of thin film technologies. Substantial technical progress has been made towards improving the efficiencies of polycrystalline thin film solar cells to reduce the production costs. Progress in semiconductor deposition techniques has also been rapid. The most mature of these are based on polycrystalline silicon (p - Si), amorphous silicon (a - Si), copper indium diselenide $SuInSe_2$(CIS), and cadmium telluride (CdTe). This paper explores the recent advances in the development of polycrystalline thin film solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.260-262
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• 2005

Thickness optimization of heavily doped p-type seeding layer was studied to improve performance of thin film silicon solar cell. We used liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) to grow active layer of $25{\mu}m$ thickness on $p^+$ seeding layer. The cells with $p^+$ seeding layer of $10{\mu}m\;to\;50{\mu}m$ thickness were fabricated. The highest efficiency of a cell is 12.95%, with $V_{oc}=633mV,\;J_{sc}=26.5mA/cm^2$, FF = 77.15%. The $p^+$ seeding layer of the cell is $20{\mu}m$ thick. As thicker seeding layer than $20{\mu}m$, the performance of the cell was degraded. The results demonstrate that the part of the recombination current is due to the heavily doped seeding layer. Thickness of heavily doped p-type seeding layer was optimized to $20{\mu}m$. The performance of solar cell is expected to improve with the incorporation of light trapping as texturing and AR coating.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.426.1-426.1
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• 2016

We report high work function Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) films as insertion layer as a function of O2 flow rate between transparent conducting oxides (TCO) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiOx:H) layer to improve open circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) for high efficiency thin film solar cell. However, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells exhibit poor fill factors due to a Schottky barrier like impedance at the interface between a-SiOx:H windows and TCO. The impedance is caused by an increasing mismatch between the work function of TCO and that of p-type a-SiOx:H. In this study, we report on the silicon thin film solar cell by using as insertion layer of O2 reactive AZO films between TCO and p-type a-SiOx:H. Significant efficiency enhancement was demonstrated by using high work-function layers (4.95 eV at O2=2 sccm) for engineering the work function at the key interfaces to raise FF as well as Voc. Therefore, we can be obtained the conversion efficiency of 7 % at 13mA/cm2 of the current density (Jsc) and 63.35 % of FF.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.1019-1023
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• 2012

In this research, a novel direct-aluminum-heating-induced crystallization method was developed for the purpose of application to solar cells. By applying a constant current of 3 A to an aluminum thin film, a 200-nm-thick amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film with a size of $1cm{\times}1cm$ can be crystallized into a polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin film within a few tens of seconds. The Raman spectrum analysis shows a peak of 520 $cm^{-1}$, which verifies the presence of poly-Si. After removing the aluminum layer, the poly-Si thin film was found to be porous. SIMS analysis showed that the porous poly-Si thin film was heavily p-doped with a doping concentration of $10^{21}cm^{-3}$. Thermal imaging shows that the crystallization from a-Si to poly-Si occurred at a temperature of around 820 K.