• 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.

• Solar Energy
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.68-73
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• 1988

In the glass/TCO/p-i-n a-Si/Al type of amorphous silicon solar cell, the effects on solar cell efficiency and metastability for the various kinds of TCO analyzed by SAM and ESCA, which was used to measure the diffusion profiles of In and Sn and the Fermi energy shifts in the TCO/p interface respectively. Indium which diffused into a-Si p-layer did not have any significant effects on the Fermi level shift of p-layer when the content of $B_2H_6/SiH_4$ in p-layer was at 1 gas%. The cell fabricated on $SnO_2$ turned out to have the best cell photovoltaic characteristics. ITO fabricated by electron beam deposition system, which was shown to have the greatest rate of diffusion of Indium in ITO/p interface produced the worst metastability among the cells tested.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.55-71
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• 2017

Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO), especially Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films are almost prepared by DC magnetron sputtering because of the advantage of obtaining homogeneous large area coatings with high reproducibility. The purpose of this report is describe a detailed investigation of key factors dominating electrical and structural properties of sputtered ITO films. It was confirmed that crystallinity and electrical properties of ITO films were strongly depend on the sputtering pressure and kinetic energy of sputtered particles which are expected to have a close relation with the transport processes between target and substrate. And also, nodule formation on the ITO target was suppressed by both $CaCO_3$ addition and decreasing micro-pore in the target. On the other hand, we focused on the characteristics of amorphous TCO film to use as transparent electrode for various applications. To realize high thermoelectric performance, it was tried to control both high electrical conductivity and low thermal conductivity for the amorphous IZO:Sn films.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.31-36
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• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film(a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides(TCO) in order to see the effect of TCO/p-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage VOC than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer(${\mu}c-Si:H$) between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{OC}$ of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{OC}$ of 994mV while keeping fill factor(72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{SC}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{OC}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.158-161
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• 2006

Superstrate pin amorphous silicon thin-film (a-Si:H) solar cells are prepared on $SnO_2:F$ and ZnO:Al transparent conducting oxides (TCO) In order to see the effect of TCO/P-layers on a-Si:H solar cell operation. The solar cells prepared on textured ZnO:Al have higher open circuit voltage $V_{oc}$ than cells prepared on $SnO_2:F$. Presence of thin microcrystalline p-type silicon layer $({\mu}c-Si:H)$ between ZnO:Al and p a-SiC:H plays a major role by causing improvement in fill factor as well as $V_{oc}$, of a-Si:H solar cells prepared on ZnO:Al TCO. Without any treatment of pi interface, we could obtain high $V_{oc}$, of 994mv while keeping fill factor (72.7%) and short circuit current density $J_{sc}$ at the same level as for the cells on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This high $V_{oc}$ value can be attributed to modification in the current transport in this region due to creation of a potential barrier.

• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.13 no.spc2
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• pp.336-340
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• 2012

Wide band gap p-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO:H) buffer layer has been used at the interface of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) p-type layer of a p-i-n type a-Si:H solar cell. Introduction of 5 nm thick buffer layer improves in blue response of the cell along with 0.5% enhancement of photovoltaic conversion efficiency (η). The cells with buffer layer show higher open circuit voltage (Voc), fill factor (FF), short circuit current density (Jsc) and improved blue response with respect to the cell without buffer layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.492-492
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• 2014

On account of the good conductivity and optical properties, TCO is generally used in silicon heterojunction solar cell since the emitter material, hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), of the solar cell has low conductivity compare to the emitter of crystalline silicon solar cell. However, the work function mismatch between TCO layer and emitter leads to band-offset and interfere the injection of photo-generated carriers. In this study, work function engineering of TCO by oxygen reactive sputtering method was carried out to identify the trend of band-offset change. The open circuit voltage and short circuit current are noticeably changed by work function that effected from variation of oxygen ratio.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.196-200
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• 2005

In this work, we investigated simple Aㅣ/TCO/a-Si:H(n)/c-Si(p)/Al hetero-junction solar cells prepared by low temperature processes, unlike conventional thermal diffused c-Si solar cells. a-Si:H/c-Si hetero-junction solar cells are processed by low temperature deposition of n-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition on textured and flat p-type silicon substrate. A detailed investigation was carried out to acquire optimization and compatibility of amorphous layer, TCO (ZnO:Al) layer depositions by changing the plasma process parameters. As front TCO and back contact, ZnO:Al and AI were deposited by rf magnetron sputtering and e-beam evaporation, respectively. The photovoltaic conversion efficiency under AMI.5 and the quantum efficiency on $1cm^2$ sample have been reported. An efficiency of $12.5\%$ is achieved on hetero-structure solar cells based on p-type crystalline silicon.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.351.2-351.2
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• 2014

Indium tin oxide (ITO) has a lot of variations of its properties because it is basically in an amorphous state. Therefore, the differences in composition ratio of ITO can result in alteration of electrical properties. Normally, ITO is considered as transparent conductive oxide (TCO), possessing excellent properties for the optical and electrical devices. Quantitatively, TCO has transparency over 80 percent within the range of 380nm to 780nm, which is visible light although its specific resistance is less than $10-3{\Omega}/cm$. Thus, the solar cell is the best example for which ITO has perfectly matching profile. In addition, when ITO is used as transparent conductive electrode, this material essentially has to have a proper work function with contact materials. For instance, heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cell could have both front ITO and backside ITO. Because each side of ITO films has different type of contact materials, p-type amorphous silicon and n-type amorphous silicon, work function of ITO has to be modified to transport carrier with low built-in potential and Schottky barrier, and approximately requires variation from 3 eV to 5 eV. In this study, we examine the change of work function for different sputtering conditions using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). Structure of ITO films was investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optical transmittance of the films was evaluated by using an ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.352.1-352.1
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• 2014

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films are the most extensively studied and commonly used as ones of TCO films. The ITO films having a high electric conductivity and high transparency are easily fabricated on glass substrate at a substrate temperature over $250^{\circ}C$. However, glass substrates are somewhat heavy and brittle, whereas plastic substrates are lightweight, unbreakable, and so on. For these reasons, it has been recently suggested to use plastic substrates for flexible display application instead of glass. Many reaearchers have tried to produce high quality thin films at rood temperatures by using several methods. Therefore, amorphous ITO films excluding thermal process exhibit a decrease in electrical conductivity and optical transparency with time and a very poor chemical stability. However the amorphous Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) offers several advantages. For typical instance, unlike either crystalline or amorphous ITO, same and higher than a-IGZO resistivity is found when no reactive oxygen is added to the sputter chamber, this greatly simplifies the deposition. We reported on the characteristics of a-IGZO thin films were fabricated by RF-magnetron sputtering method on the PEN substrate at room temperature using 3inch sputtering targets different rate of Zn. The homogeneous and stable targets were prepared by calcine and sintering process. Furthermore, two types of IGZO TFT design, a- IGZO source/drain material in TFT and the other a- ITO source/drain material, have been fabricated for comparison with each other. The experimental results reveal that the a- IGZO source/drain electrode in IGZO TFT is shown to be superior TFT performances, compared with a- ITO source/drain electrode in IGZO TFT.