• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.98.2-98.2
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• 2012

Thin film solar cells are growing up in the market due to their high efficiency and low cost. Especially CdTe and $CuInGaSe_2$ based solar cells are leading the other cells, but due to the limited percentage of the elements present in our earth's crust like Tellurium, Indium and Gallium, the price of the solar cells will increase rapidly. Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide (CZTS) and Copper Zinc Tin Selenide (CZTSe) semiconductor (having a kesterite crystal structure) are getting attention for its solar cell application as the absorber layer. CZTS and CZTSe have almost the same crystal structure with more environmentally friendly elements. Various authors have reported growth and characterization of CZTSe films and solar cells with efficiencies about 3.2% to 8.9%. In this study, a novel method to prepare CZTSe has been proposed based on selenization of stacked Copper Selenide ($Cu_2Se$), Tin Selenide ($SnSe_2$) and Zinc Selenide (Zinc Selenide) in six possible stacking combinations. Depositions were carried out through RF magnetron sputtering. Selenization of all the samples was performed in Close Space Sublimation (CSS) in vacuum at different temperatures for three minutes. Characterization of each sample has been performed in Field Emission SEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy, EDS and Auger. In this study, the properties and results of $Cu_2ZnSnSe_4$ thin films grown by selenization will be presented.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.305.2-305.2
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• 2016

Tin monosulfide (SnS) is one promising candidate absorber material which replace the current technology based on cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium sulfide selenide (CIGS) for its suitable optical band gap, high absorption coefficient, earth-abundant, non-toxic and cost-effective. During past years work, thin film solar cells based on SnS films had been improved to 4.36% certified efficiency. In this study, Tin monosul fide was obtained by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using the reaction of Tetrakis (dimethylamino) tin (TDMASn, [(CH3)2N]4Sn) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) at low temperatures (100 to 200 oC). The direct optical band gap and strong optical absorption of SnS films were observed throughout the Ultraviolet visible spectroscopy (UV VIS), and the properties of SnS films were analyzed by sanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD).

• Solar Energy
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.55-65
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• 2000

Better electrical and optical properties of ITO thin films were demanded for the window layer of CdS/CdTe solar cells. To match that demand, an ion beam sputtering system was used for the deposition of ITO thin films. The substrate temperature and ion beam energy were controlled to deposit high quality ITO thin films in two cases of Ar ion sputtering and Ar+$O_2$ ion sputtering. The microstructure changed from domain structure in ITO deposited by Ar ions to grain structure in ITO deposited by Ar+$O_2$ ions. The lowest resistivity of ITO films was $1.5\times10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ at $100^{\circ}C$ substrate temperature in case of Ar ions sputtering. Transmittance in the visible range was over 80% above $100^{\circ}C$ substrate temperature.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.619-625
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• 2021

Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ (CZTSSe) based thin-film solar cells have attracted growing attention because of their earth-abundant and non-toxic elements. However, because of their large open-circuit voltage (V_oc)-deficit, CZTSSe solar cells exhibit poor device performance compared to well-established Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)₂ (CIGS) and CdTe based solar cells. One of the main causes of this large V_oc-deficit is poor absorber properties for example, high band tailing properties, defects, secondary phases, carrier recombination, etc. In particular, the fabrication of absorbers using physical methods results in poor surface morphology, such as pin-holes and voids. To overcome this problem and form large and homogeneous CZTSSe grains, CZTSSe based absorber layers are prepared by a sputtering technique with different RTA conditions. The temperature is varied from 510 ℃ to 540 ℃ during the rapid thermal annealing (RTA) process. Further, CZTSSe thin films are examined with X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, IPCE, Energy dispersive spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy techniques. The present work shows that Cu-based secondary phase formation can be suppressed in the CZTSSe absorber layer at an optimum RTA condition.

• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.13 no.spc1
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• pp.140-144
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• 2012

Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) was a limit of application on the photovoltaic devices such as CIGS, CdTe and DSSC requiring high process temperature, because it's electrical resistivity is unstable above 300 ℃ at atmosphere. Therefore, ZTO (zinc tin oxide) was introduced in order to improve permeability and thermal stability of GZO film. The resistivity of GZO (300 nm) single layer increased remarkably from 1.8 × 10-3Ωcm to 5.5 × 10-1Ωcm, when GZO was post-annealed at 400 ℃ in air atmosphere. In the case of the ZTO (150 nm)/GZO (150 nm) double layer, resistivity showed relatively small change from 3.1 × 10-3Ωcm (RT) to 1.2 × 10-2Ωcm (400 ℃), which showed good agreement with change of carrier density. This result means that ZTO upper layer act as a barrier for oxygen at high temperature. Also ZTO (150 nm)/GZO (150 nm) double layer showed lower WVTR compared to GZO (300 nm) single layer. Because ZTO has lower WVTR compared to GZO, ZTO thin film acts as a barrier by preventing oxygen and water molecules to penetrate on top of GZO thin film.