• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.448-449
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• 2008

HIT(Heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer) solar cell은 결정 실리콘 (c-Si)을 n-type으로 제작시 수율이 어렵고 결정 실리콘 (c-Si)을 p-type위에 제조하는 것이 보다 보편적인 방법이므로 베이스의 결정 실리콘에는 p-type을, 그 위에는 진성 층(intrinsic layer) 그리고 반투명 전극의 아래에 제조되는 비정질 실리콘 (a-Si)을 n-type으로 하여 베이스 층과 TCO 후면 층의 두께, 도핑 농도 (doping concentration)와의 관계를 확인하여 본다.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.73-81
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• 2013

Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-layer (HIT) solar cells are currently an important subject in industrial trends for thinner solar cell wafers due to the low-temperature of production processes, which is around $200^{\circ}C$, and due to their high-efficiency of 24.7%, as reported by the Panasonic (Sanyo) group. The use of thinner wafers and the enhancement of cell performance with fabrication at low temperature have been special interests of the researchers. The fundamental understanding of the band bending structures, choice of materials, fabrication process, and nano-scale characterization methods to provide necessary understanding of the interface passivation mechanisms, emitter properties, and requirements for transparent oxide conductive layers is presented in this review. This information should be used for the performance characterization of the developing technologies for HIT solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.192-197
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• 2017

Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) is used as an emitter layer in HIT (heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer) solar cells. Its low band gap and low optical properties (low transmittance and high absorption) cause parasitic absorption on the front side of a solar cell that significantly reduces the solar cell blue response. To overcome this, research on CSC (carrier Selective Contacts) is being actively carried out to reduce carrier recombination and improve carrier transportation as a means to approach the theoretical efficiency of silicon solar cells. Among CSC materials, molybdenum oxide ($MoO_x$) is most commonly used for the hole transport layer (HTL) of a solar cell due to its high work function and wide band gap. This paper analyzes the electrical and optical properties of $MoO_x$ thin films for use in the HTL of HIT solar cells. The optical properties of $MoO_x$ show better performance than a-Si:H and ${\mu}c-SiO_x:H$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.376-379
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• 2016

In this paper, the efficiency improvement of the heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cells is obtained by optimization process of p-type a-SiC:H as emitter. The optoelectronic of p-type a-SiC:H layers including the optical band-gap and conductivity under the methane gas content variation is conducted in detail. A significant increase in the Jsc by $1mA/cm^2$ and Voc by 30 mV are attributed to enhanced photon-absorption due to broader band-gap of p-a-SiC:H and reduced band-offsets at p-side interface, respectively of HIT solar cells.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.102-108
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• 2018

A glass-texturing technique was developed for photovoltaic (PV) module cover glass; periodic honeycomb textures were formed by using a conventional lithography technique and diluted hydrogen fluoride etching solutions. The etching conditions were optimized for three different types of textured structures. In contrast to a flat glass substrate, the textured glasses were structured with etched average surface angles of $31-57^{\circ}$, and large aspect ratios of 0.17-0.47; by using a finite difference time-domain simulation, we show that these textured surfaces increase the amount of scattered light and reduce reflectance on the glass surface. In addition, the optical transmittance of the textured glass was markedly improved by up to 95% for wavelengths ranging from 400 to 1100 nm. Furthermore, applying the textured structures to the cover glass of the PV module with heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer crystalline silicon solar cells resulted in improvements in the short-circuit current density and module efficiency from 39 to $40.2mA/cm^2$ and from 21.65% to 22.41%, respectively. Considering these results, the proposed method has the potential to further strengthen the industrial and technical competitiveness of crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.251-255
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• 2021

a-Si is commonly considered as a primary candidate for the formation of passivation layer in heterojunction (HIT) solar cells. However, there are some problems when using this material such as significant losses due to recombination and parasitic absorption. To reduce these problems, a wide bandgap material is needed. A wide bandgap has a positive influence on effective transmittance, reduction of the parasitic absorption, and prevention of unnecessary epitaxial growth. In this paper, the adoption of a-SiO_x:H as the intrinsic layer was discussed. To increase lifetime and conductivity, oxygen concentration control is crucial because it is correlated with the thickness, bonding defect, interface density (D_it), and band offset. A thick oxygen-rich layer causes the lifetime and the implied open-circuit voltage to drop. Furthermore the thicker the layer gets, the more free hydrogen atoms are etched in thin films, which worsens the passivation quality and the efficiency of solar cells. Previous studies revealed that the lifetime and the implied voltage decreased when the a-SiOx thickness went beyond around 9 nm. In addition to this, oxygen acted as a defect in the intrinsic layer. The D_it increased up to an oxygen rate on the order of 8%. Beyond 8%, the D_it was constant. By controlling the oxygen concentration properly and achieving a thin layer, high-efficiency HIT solar cells can be fabricated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.211.2-211.2
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• 2013

ITO (indium tin oxide)는 스마트폰을 비롯한 여러전자제품의 터치패널 투명전극으로 가장 많이 쓰이고 있는 물질이다. 산화 인듐(In2O3)과 산화 주석(SnO2)의 화합물로 우수한 전기적 특성과 광학적 특성을 지녀 태양전지 분야에서도 그 활용가능성이 높다. 또한 최근 고효율 태양전지인 HIT (heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer) solar cell의 경우 Si 기판의 두께가 얇고, 소자의 양면에서 태양광을 흡수하여 효율을 증가 시키데, 특히 투명 전극의 물리적 특성들과 계면의 트랩의 상태가 효율에 영향을 미친다. 본 연구에서는 HIT Si 기판의 태양전지 구조에 전극으로 쓰일 ITO 박막을 sputtering 방법으로 증착하여 물리적 특성을 연구하였다. ITO 타겟을 활용한 radio frequency magnetron sputtering 방법으로 Si 기판에 ITO 박막을 증착하였다. 50W의 방전전력과 Ar 10 sccm 분위기에서 성장시킨 ITO 박막을 Transmission Electron Microscope 로 측정하였다. X-ray Diffraction 측정으로 ITO 결정의 방향성을 확인하고 Photoluminescence 측정으로 성장된 ITO 박막의 밴드갭 에너지를 확인하였다. $100^{\circ}C$, $200^{\circ}C$, $300^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$에서 후열처리한박막의 광 투과율, 비저항, 이동도를 측정 비교하여 적절한 후열처리 온도를 찾는 연구를 진행하였다. Sputtering 방법으로 성장시킨 ITO 박막의 전기적, 광학적 특성을 측정하여 HIT solar cell에 활용될 가능성을 확인하였다.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2020

The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of a two-terminal tandem solar cell depends upon the tunnel-recombination junction (TRJ) between the top and bottom sub-cells. An optimized TRJ in a tandem cell helps improve its open-circuit voltage (V_oc), short-circuit current density (J_sc), fill factor (FF), and efficiency (PCE). One of the parameters that affect the TRJ is the buffer layer thickness. Therefore, we investigated various TRJs by varying the thickness of the buffer or intermediate layer (TRJ-buffer) in between the highly doped p-type and n-type layers of the TRJ. The TRJ-buffer layer was p-type nc-Si:H, with a doping of 0.06%, an activation energy (E_a) of 43 meV, an optical gap (E_g) of 2.04 eV, and its thickness was varied from 0 nm to 125 nm. The tandem solar cells we investigated were a combination of a heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) bottom sub-cell and an a-Si:H (amorphous silicon) top sub-cell. The initial cell efficiency without the TRJ buffer was 7.65% while with an optimized buffer layer, its efficiency improved to 11.74%, i.e., an improvement in efficiency by a factor of 1.53.

• 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