• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.99.2-99.2
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• 2010

This paper investigates the dependence of a-Si:H/c-Si passivation and heterojunction solar cell performances on various cleaning processes of silicon wafer and surface morphology. It is observed that passivation quality of a-Si:H thin-films on c-Si wafer highly depends on wafer surface conditions. The MCLT(Minority carrier life time) of wafer incorporating intrinsic (i) a-Si:H as a passivation layer shows sensitive variation with cleaning process and surface morpholgy. By applying improved cleaning processes and surface morphology we can obtain the MCLT of $200{\mu}sec$ after H-termination and above 1.5msec after i a-Si:H thin film deposition, which has implied open circuit voltage of 0.720V.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.75-79
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• 2009

An intrinsic silicon thin film passivation layer is deposited by the microwave remote-plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at temperature of $175^{\circ}C$ and various gas ratios for solar cell applications. The good quality amorphous silicon films were formed at silane $(SiH_4)$ gas flow rates above 15 seem. The highest effective carrier lifetime was obtained at the $SiH_4$, flow rate of 20 seem and the value was about 3 times higher compared with the bulk lifetime of 5.6 ${\mu}s$ at a fixed injection level of ${\Delta}n\;=\;5{\times}10^{14}\;cm^{-3}$. An annealing treatment was performed and the carrier life times were increased approximately 5 times compared with the bulk lifetime. The optimal annealing temperature and time were obtained at 250 $^{\circ}C$ and 60 sec respectively. This indicates that the combination of the deposition of an amorphous thin film at a low temperature and the annealing treatment contributes to the excellent surface and bulk passivation.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.125-129
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• 2019

Recently, carrier-selective contact solar cells have attracted much interests because of its high efficiency with low recombination current density. In this study, we investigated the effect of phosphorus doped amorphous silicon layer's characteristics on the passivation properties of tunnel oxide passivated carrier-selective contact solar cells. We fabricated symmetric structure sample with poly-Si/SiOx/c-Si by deposition of phosphorus doped amorphous silicon layer on the silicon oxide with subsequent annealing and hydrogenation process. We varied deposition temperature, deposition thickness, and annealing conditions, and blistering, lifetime and passivation quality was evaluated. The result showed that blistering can be controlled by deposition temperature, and passivation quality can be improved by controlling annealing conditions. Finally, we achieved blistering-free electron carrier-selective contact with 730mV of i-Voc, and cell-like structure consisted of front boron emitter and rear passivated contact showed 682mV i-Voc.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.197-200
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• 2014

We investigated the influence of blistering on $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks and $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks passivation layers. $Al_2O_3$ film provides outstanding Si surface passivation quality. $Al_2O_3$ film as the rear passivation layer of a p-type Si solar cell is usually stacked with a capping layer, such as $SiO_2$, SiNx, and SiON films. These capping layers protect the thin $Al_2O_3$ layer from an Al electrode during the annealing process. We compared $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks and $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks through surface morphology and minority carrier lifetime after annealing processes at $450^{\circ}C$ and $850^{\circ}C$. As a result, the $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks were observed to produce less blister phenomenon than $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks. This can be explained by the differences in the H species content. In the process of depositing SiNx film, the rich H species in $NH_3$ source are diffused to the $Al_2O_3$ film. On the other hand, less hydrogen diffusion occurs in SiON film as it contains less H species than SiNx film. This blister phenomenon leads to an increase insurface defect density. Consequently, the $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks had a higher minority carrier lifetime than the $Al_2O_3$/SiNx:H stacks.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.233-237
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• 2015

Silicon oxynitride that can be deposited two times faster than general SiNx:H layer was applied to fabricate the passivation protection layer of atomic layer deposition (ALD) $Al_2O_3$. The protection layer is deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition to protect $Al_2O_3$ passivation layer from a high temperature metallization process for contact firing in screen-printed silicon solar cell. In this study, we studied passivation performance of ALD $Al_2O_3$ film as functions of process temperature and RF plasma effect in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition system. $Al_2O_3$/SiON stacks coated at $400^{\circ}C$ showed higher lifetime values in the as-stacked state. In contrast, a high quality $Al_2O_3$/SiON stack was obtained with a plasma power of 400 W and a capping-deposition temperature of $200^{\circ}C$ after the firing process. The best lifetime was achieved with stack films fired at $850^{\circ}C$. These results demonstrated the potential of the $Al_2O_3/SiON$ passivated layer for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.423-424
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• 2008

A facing target sputtering (FTS) equiment is fabricated and its process characteristics are investigated to search for the possibility of applications to film passivation system for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). We report that the FTS system can prepare a high quality $ZrO_2$ films with a dense micro structure and an excellent uniformity less than 5% and a high transmittance over an average 80% in the visible range. We suggest that the FTS is one of the suitable deposition techniques for the thin film passivation layer of OLEDs and the gas barrier layer of polymer substrate.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.15-20
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• 2019

Most high-efficiency n-type silicon solar cells are based on the high quality surface passivation and ohmic contact between the emitter and the metal. Currently, various metalization methods such as screen printing using metal paste and physical vapor deposition are being used in forming electrodes of n-type silicon solar cell. In this paper, we analyzed the degradation factors induced by the front electrode formation process using e-beam evaporation of double passivation structure of p-type emitter and $Al_2O_3/SiN_x$ for high efficiency solar cell using n-type bulk silicon. In order to confirm the cause of the degradation, the passivation characteristics of each electrode region were determined through a quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC).

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.47 no.10
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• pp.644-651
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• 2009

The passivation (or deactivation) of a metal surface during oxide film formation has been quantitatively explored for a ferritic stainless steel by using dynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (DEIS). For this purpose, the electrochemical impedance spectra were carefully examined as a function of applied potential in the active nose region of the potentiodynamic polarization curve, to separate the charge transfer resistance and oxide film resistance. From the discrepancy in the potential dependence between the experimental charge transfer resistance and the semi-empirically expected one, the degree of passivation could be quantitatively estimated. The sensitivity of passivation of the steel surface to anodic potential, which might be the measure of the quality of the oxide film formed under unit driving force or over-potential, decreased by 31% when 3.5 wt% NaCl was added to a 5 wt% $H_2SO_4$ solution.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.233-240
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• 2023

p-type Tunnel Oxide Passivating Contacts (TOPCon) solar cell is fabricated with a poly-Si/SiO_x structure. It simultaneously achieves surface passivation and enhances the carriers' selective collection, which is a promising technology for conventional solar cells. The quality of passivation is depended on the quality of the tunnel oxide layer at the interface with the c-Si wafer, which is affected by the bond of SiO formed during the subsequent annealing process. The highest cell efficiency reported to date for the laboratory scale has increased to 26.1%, fabricated by the Institute for Solar Energy Research. The cells used a p-type float zone silicon with an interdigitated back contact (IBC) structure that fabricates poly-Si and SiO_x layer achieves the highest implied open-circuit voltage (iV_oc) is 750 mV, and the highest level of edge passivation is 40%. This review presents an overview of p-type TOPCon technologies, including the ultra-thin silicon oxide layer (SiO_x) and poly-silicon layer (poly-Si), as well as the advancement of the SiO_x and poly-Si layers. Subsequently, the limitations of improving efficiency are discussed in detail. Consequently, it is expected to provide a basis for the simplification of industrial mass production.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.142-145
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• 2004

In this work, we have investigated the application of rapid thermal processing (RTP) and plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) for surface passivation. Rapid thermal oxidation (RTO) has sufficiently low surface recombination velocities (SRV) $S_{eff}$ in spite of a thin oxides and short process time. The effective lifetime is increasing with an increase of the oxide thickness. In the same oxide thickness, The effective lifetime is independent on the process temperature and time. $S_{eff,max}$ is exponentially decreased with increasing oxide thickness. $S_{eff,max}$ can be reduced to 200 cm/s with only 10 nm oxide thickness. On the other hand, three different types of SiN are reviewed. SiN1 layer has a thickness of about 72 nm and a refractive index of 2.8. Also, The SiN1 has a high passivation quality. The effective lifetime and SRV of 1 $\Omega$ cm Float zone (FZ) silicon deposited with SiN1 is about 800 s and under 10 cm/s, respectively. The SiN2 is optimized for the use as an antireflection layer since a refractive index of 2.3. The SiN3 is almost amorphous silicon caused by less contents of N2 from total process. The effective lifetime on the FZ 1 ${\Omega}cm$ is over 1000 ${\mu}s$.