• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.29-33
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• 2003

Tri-crystalline silicon wafers have three different orientations and three-grain boundaries. In this paper, tri-crystalline silicon (tri-Si) wafers have been used for the fabrication of buried contact solar cells. The optical and micro-structural properties of these cells after texturing in KOH solution have been investigated and compared with those of cast mult- crystalline silicon (multi-Si) wafers. We employed a cost effective fabrication process and achieved buried contact solar cell (BCSC) energy conversion efficiencies up to $15\%$ whereas the cast multi-Si wafer has efficiency around $14\%$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.176-180
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• 2003

Tri-crystalline silicon (Tri-Si) wafers have three different orientations and three grain boundaries. In this paper, tri-Si wafers have been used for the fabrication of buried contact solar cells. The optical and micro-structural properties of these cells after texturing in KOH solution have been investigated and compared with those of cast multi-crystalline silicon (multi-Si) wafers. We employed a cost effective fabrication process and achieved buried contact solar cell (BCSC) energy conversion efficiencies up to 15% whereas the cast multi-Si wafer has efficiency around 14%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.419-419
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• 2016

High efficiency silicon solar cell requires the textured front surface to reduce reflectance and to improve the light trapping. In case of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell, wet etching with alkaline solution is widespread. However, the alkali texturing methods are ineffective in case of multi-crystalline silicon wafer due to grain boundary of random crystallographic orientation. The acid texturing method is generally used in multi-crystalline silicon wafer to reduce the surface reflectance. However the acid textured solar cell gives low short-circuit current due to high reflectivity while it improves the open-circuit voltage. To reduce the reflectivity of multi-crystalline silicon wafer, double texturing method with combination of acid and reactive ion etching is an attractive technical solution. In this paper, we have studied to optimize RIE experimental condition with change of RF power (100W, 150W, 200W, 250W, 300W). During experiment, the gas ratio of SF6 and O2 was fixed as 30:10.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.649-653
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• 2010

In this paper, double texturization of multi crystalline silicon solar cells was studied with laser and reactive ion etching (RIE). In the case of multi crystalline silicon wafers, chemical etching has problems in producing a uniform surface texture. Thus various etching methods such as laser and dry texturization have been studied for multi crystalline silicon wafers. In this study, laser texturization with an Nd:$YVO_4$ green laser was performed first to get the proper hole spacing and $300{\mu}m$ was found to be the most proper value. Laser texturization on crystalline silicon wafers was followed by damage removal in acid solution and RIE to achieve double texturization. This study showed that double texturization on multi crystalline silicon wafers with laser firing and RIE resulted in lower reflectance, higher quantum yield and better efficiency than that process without RIE. However, RIE formed sharp structures on the silicon wafer surfaces, which resulted in 0.8% decrease of fill factor at solar cell characterization. While chemical etching makes it difficult to obtain a uniform surface texture for multi crystalline silicon solar cells, the process of double texturization with laser and RIE yields a uniform surface structure, diminished reflectance, and improved efficiency. This finding lays the foundation for the study of low-cost, high efficiency multi crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.94-101
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• 2018

Light elevated temperature induced degradation (LeTID) was noted as an issue in multi-crystalline silicon solar cells (MSSC) by Ram speck in 2012. In contrast to light induced degradation (LID), which has been researched in silicon solar cells for a long time, research about both LeTID and the mechanism of LeTID has been limited. In addition, research about LeTID in single-crystalline silicon solar cells (SSSC) is even more limited. In order to improve understanding of LeTID in SSSC with a passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) structure, we fabricated four group samples with boron and oxygen factors and evaluated the solar cell characteristics, such as the cell efficiency, $V_{oc}$, $I_{sc}$, fill factor (FF), LID, and LeTID. The trends of LID of the four group samples were similar to the trend of LeTID as a function of boron and oxygen.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.111-115
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• 2011

Surface Texturing is an essential process for high efficiency in multi-crystalline silicon solar cell. In order to reduce the reflectivity, there are two major methods; proper surface texturing and anti-reflection coating. For texturization, wet chemical etching is a typical method for multi-crystalline silicon. The chemical solution for wet etching consists of HF, $NHO_3$, DI and $CH_3COOH$. We carried out texturization by the change of etching time like 15sec, 30sec, 45sec, 60sec and measured the reflectivity of textured wafers. As making the silicon solar cells, we obtained the conversion efficiency and relationship between texturing condition and solar cell characteristics. The reflectivity from 300nm to 1200nm was the lowest with 15 sec texturing time and 60 sec texturing time showed almost same reflectivity as bare one. The 45 sec texturing time showed the highest conversion efficiency.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.496-500
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• 2003

A low-cost, large area, random, maskless texturing scheme independent of crystal orientation is expected to significantly impact terrestrial photovoltaic technology. We investigated silicon surface microstructures formed by reactive ion etching (RIE) in Multi-Hollow cathode system. Desirable texturing effect has been achieved when radio-frequency (rf) power of about 20 Watt per one hollow cathode glow is applied for our RF Multi-Hollow cathode system. The black silicon etched surface shows almost zero reflectance in the visible region as well as in near IR region. The etched silicon surface is covered by columnar microstructures with diameters from 50 to 100 nm and depth of about 500 nm. We have successfully achieved 11.7% efficiency of mono-crystalline silicon solar cell and 10.2% multi-crystalline silicon solar cell.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.1054-1056
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• 2002

High temperature Kermal diffusion from $POCl_3$ source usually used for conventional process through put of a cell manufacturing line and potentially reduce cell efficiency through bulk like time degradation. To fabricate high efficiency solar cells with minimal thermal processing, spin-on-doping(SOD) technique can be employed to emitter diffusion of a silicon solar cell. A technique is presented to emitter doping of a mono-crystalline solar cell using spin-on doping (SOD). Moreover it is shown that the sheet resistance variation with RTA temperature and time fer mono-crystalline and multi-crystalline silicon samples. This novel SOD technique was successfully used to produces 11.3% efficiency l04mm by 104mm size mono-crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.138-143
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• 2007

The effects of texturing and anti-reflection coating on the reflection properties of multi-crystalline silicon solar cell have been investigated. The chemical solutions of alkaline and acidic etching solutions were used for texturing at the surface of multi-crystalline Si wafer. Experiments were performed with various temperature and time conditions in order to determine the optimized etching condition. Alkaline etching solution was found inadequate to the texturing of multi-crystalline Si due to its high reflectance of about 25%. The reflectance of Si wafer texturing with acidic etching solution showed a very low reflectance about 10%, which was attributed to the formation of homogeneous. Also, deposition of ITO anti-reflection coating reduced the reflectance of multi-crystalline si etched with acidic solution($HF+HNO_3$) to 2.6%.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.383-387
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• 2009

Multi-crystalline silicon surface etching without grain-boundary delineation is a challenging task for the fabrication of high efficiency solar cell. The use of sodium hydroxide - sodium hypochlorite (NaOH40% + NaOCl 12%) solution for texturing multi-crystalline silicon wafer surface in solar cell fabrication line is reported in this article. in light current-voltage results, the cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:2 exhibited higher short circuit current and open circuit voltage than those of the cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:1 solution. we have obtained 15.19% conversion efficiency in large area(156cm2) multi-Si solar cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:1 solution.