• Solar Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 1997

Because grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon act as potential barriers and recombination centers for the photo-generated charge carriers, these defects degrade conversion effiency of solar cell. To reduce these effects of grain boundaries, we investigated various influencing factors such as thermal treatment, various grid pattern, selective wet etching for grain boundaries, buried contact metallization along grain boundaries, grid on metallic thin film. Pretreatment above $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ atmosphere, gettering by $POCl_3$ and Al treatment for back surface field contributed to obtain a high quality poly-Si. To prevent carrier losses at the grain boundaries, we carried out surface treatment using Schimmel etchant. This etchant delineated grain boundaries of $10{\mu}m$ depth as well as surface texturing effect. A metal AI diffusion into grain boundaries on rear side reduced back surface recombination effects at grain boundaries. A combination of fine grid with finger spacing of 0.4mm and buried electrode along grain boundaries improved short circuit current density of solar cell. A ultra-thin Chromium layer of 20nm with transmittance of 80% reduced series resistance. This paper focused on the grain boundary effect for terrestrial applications of solar cells with low cost, large area, and high efficiency.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 1999

The $n^+/p/p^+$ junction PERL solar cell of $0.1{\sim}2{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ (100) p type silicon wafer was fabricated through the following steps; that is, wafer cutting, inverted pyramidally textured surfaces etching by KOH, phosphorus and boron diffusion, anti-reflection coating, grid formation and contact annealing. At this time, the optical characteristics of device surface and the efficiency of doping concentration for resistivity were investigated. And diffusion depth and doping concentration for n+ doping were simulated by silvaco program. Then their results were compared with measured results. Under the illumination of AM (air mass)1.5, $100\;mW/cm^2$ $I_{sc}$, $V_{oc}$, fill factor and the conversion efficiency were 43mA, 0.6 V, 0.62. and 16% respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.243-248
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• 2022

As the scope of use of portable and wearable electronic devices is expanding, the limitations of heavy and bulky solid-state batteries are being revealed. Given that, it is urgent to develop a small energy harvesting device that can partially share the role of a battery and the utilization of energy sources that are thrown away in daily life is becoming more important. Contact electrification, which generates electricity based on the coupling of the triboelectric effect and electrical induction when the two material surfaces are in contact and separated, can effectively harvest the physical and mechanical energy sources existing in the surrounding environment without going through a complicated intermediate process. Recently, the interest in the harvest and utilization of wind energy is growing since the wind is an infinitely ecofriendly energy source among the various environmental energy sources that exist in human surroundings. In this study, the optimization of the energy harvesting device for the effective harvest of wind energy based on the contact electrification was analyzed and then, the utilization strategy to maximize the utilization of the generated electricity was investigated. Natural wind based Fluttering TENG (NF-TENG) using fluttering film was developed, and design optimization was conducted. Moreover, the safe high voltage generation system was developed and a plan for application in the field requiring high voltage was proposed by highlighting the unique characteristics of TENG that generates low current and high voltage. In this respect, the result of this study demonstrates that a portable energy harvesting device based on the contact electrification shows great potential as a strategy to harvest wind energy thrown away in daily life and use it widely in fields requiring high voltage.

• Composites Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.138-144
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• 2017

Damage sensing of polymer composite films consisting of poly(dicyclopentadiene) p-DCPD and carbon nanotube (CNT) was studied experimentally. Only up to 1st ring-opening polymerization occurred with the addition of CNT, which made the modified film electrically conductive, while interfering with polymerization. The interfacial adhesion of composite films with varying CNT concentration was evaluated by measuring the wettability using the static contact angle method. 0.5 wt% CNT/p-DCPD was determined to be the optimal condition via electrical dispersion method and tensile test. Dynamic fatigue test was conducted to evaluate the durability of the films by measuring the change in electrical resistance. For the initial three cycles, the change in electrical resistance pattern was similar to the tensile stress-strain curve. The CNT/p-DCPD film was attached to an epoxy matrix to demonstrate its utilization as a sensor for fracture behavior. At the onset of epoxy fracture, electrical resistance showed a drastic increase, which indicated adhesive fracture between sensor and matrix. It leads to prediction of crack and fracture of matrix.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.224-232
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• 2000

Aluminum metal process in surface micromachining enables to fabricate Al electrodes or Al structures, which improve electrical characteristics by reducing contact- and line-resistance or makes the whole process to be simple by using oxide as sacrificial layer. However, it is not possible to use conventional sacrificial layer etching process, because HF solution attacks aluminum as well as sacrificial oxide. The mixed solution of BHF and glycerine as an alternative shows the adequate properties to meet with this end. The exact etching properties, however, are sensitively depends on the geometry of the released structure, because the most etching process of sacrificial layer proceeds to the lateral direction in narrow space. Also, the surface roughness of aluminum affects to the etching characteristics. This paper reports experimental results on the effect of microstructure and surface roughness of aluminum to the etching properties. Considering these effects, we propose the optimized etching condition, which can be used practically for the fabrication of aluminum electrodes and microstructures by using standard surface micromachining process without modification or additional process.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.475-479
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• 2012

We present a novel polymer fabrication process involving direct UV patterning of a hyperbranched polymer, AEO3000. Compared to PDMS, which is the most widely used polymer in bioMEMS devices, the present polymer has advantages with regard to electrode integration and fast fabrication. We designed a four-chip microelectrofluidic bench having three electrical pads and two fluidic I/O ports. We integrated a microfluidic mixer and a cell separator on the bench to characterize the interconnection performance and sample manipulation. Electrical and fluidic characterization of the microfluidic bench was performed. The measured electrical contact resistance was $0.75{\pm}0.44{\Omega}$, which is small enough for electrical applications, and the pressure drop was 8.3 kPa, which was 39.3% of the value in the tubing method. By performing yeast mixing and a separation test in the integrated module on the bench, we successfully showed that the interconnected chips could be used for bio-sample manipulation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.603-609
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• 2022

Passivation quality is mainly governed by epitaxial growth of crystalline silicon wafer surface. Void-rich intrinsic a-Si:H interfacial layer could offer higher resistivity of the c-Si surface and hence a better device efficiency as well. To reduce the resistivity of the contact area, a modification of void-rich intrinsic layer of a-Si:H towards more ordered state with a higher density is adopted by adapting its thickness and reducing its series resistance significantly, but it slightly decreases passivation quality. Higher resistance is not dominated by asymmetric effects like different band offsets for electrons or holes. In this study, multilayer of intrinsic a-Si:H layers were used. The first one with a void-rich was a-Si:H(I₁) and the next one a-SiO_x:H(I₂) were used, where a-SiO_x:H(I₂) had relatively larger band gap of ~2.07 eV than that of a-Si:H (I₁). Using a-SiO_x:H as I₂ layer was expected to increase transparency, which could lead to an easy carrier transport. Also, higher implied voltage than the conventional structure was expected. This means that the a-SiO_x:H could be a promising material for a high-quality passivation of c-Si. In addition, the i-a-SiO_x:H microstructure can help the carrier transportation through tunneling and thermal emission.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.spc3
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• pp.194-198
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• 2012

Crystalline silicon solar cell remains the major player in the photovoltaic marketplace with 80% of the market, despite the development of various thin film technologies. Silicon's excellent efficiency, stability, material abundance and low toxicity have helped to maintain its position of dominance. However, the cost of silicon materials remains a major barrier to reducing the cost of silicon photovoltaics. Using the crystalline silicon wafer with thinner thickness is the promising way for cost and material reduction in the solar cell production. However, the thinner the silicon wafer is, the worse bow phenomenon is induced. The bow phenomenon is observed when two or more layers of materials with different temperature expansion coefficiencies are in contact, in this case silicon and aluminum. In this paper, the solar cells were fabricated with different thicknesses of Al layer in order to reduce the bow phenomenon. With less amount of paste applications, we observed that the bow could be reduced by up to 40% of the largest value with 120 micron thickness of the wafer even though the conversion efficiency decrease by 0.5% occurred. Since the bowed wafers lead to unacceptable yield losses during the module construction, the reduction of bow is indispensable on thin crystalline silicon solar cell. In this work, we have studied on the counterbalance between the bow and conversion efficiency and also suggest the formation of enough back surface field (BSF) with thinner Al layer application.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.364-371
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• 2015

In this study, we developed a feasible structure of a textile-based inductive sensor using a machine embroidery method, and applied it to a non-contact type vital sign sensing device based on the principle of magnetic-induced conductivity. The mechanical heart activity signals acquired through the inductive sensor embroidered with conductive textile on fabric were compared with the Lead II ECG signals and with respiration signals, which were simultaneously measured in every case with five subjects. The analysis result showed that the locations of the R-peak in the ECG signal were highly associated with sharp peaks in the signals obtained through the textile-based inductive sensor (r=0.9681). Based on the results, we determined the feasibility of the developed textile-based inductive sensor as a measurement device for the heart rate and respiration characteristics.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.347-353
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• 2012

Recently, multi-functionalization (as in smart phones) has been in demand, and the connectors connecting the electrical signals of each board in a cellular phone have become key components. The miniaturization of these connectors is required to achieve a finer pitch design and enhance the electrical signal transfer capacity. However, the miniaturization of connectors reduces the structural safety, and a finer pitch design may cause contact problems under external impact. In this paper, a preliminary design for miniaturized, finer-pitch connectors is suggested for a product with 50 pins and a thickness of 0.2 mm. The assembly process of the FPCB (Flexible Printed Circuit Board) and connector was simulated to ensure the holding force between the two components and avoid overstressing. The design optimization process was performed with the Taguchi method. Fatigue analysis was also conducted to predict the fatigue life of the terminal, and the theoretical and experimental results were compared.