• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.697-702
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• 2019

In this study, using a wet chemical process, we evaluate the effectiveness of different solution concentrations in removing layers from a solar cell, which is necessary for recovery of high-purity silicon. A 4-step wet etching process is applied to a 6-inch back surface field(BSF) solar cell. The metal electrode is removed in the first and second steps of the process, and the anti-reflection coating(ARC) is removed in the third step. In the fourth step, high purity silicon is recovered by simultaneously removing the emitter and the BSF layer from the solar cell. It is confirmed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy(ICP-MS) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy(SIMS) analyses that the effectiveness of layer removal increases with increasing chemical concentrations. The purity of silicon recovered through the process, using the optimal concentration for each process, is analyzed using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy(ICP-AES). In addition, the silicon wafer is recovered through optimum etching conditions for silicon recovery, and the solar cell is remanufactured using this recovered silicon wafer. The efficiency of the remanufactured solar cell is very similar to that of a commercial wafer-based solar cell, and sufficient for use in the PV industry.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.210-216
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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 wafers. It is observed that the passivation quality of a-Si:H thin-films on c-Si wafers depends highly on the initial H-termination properties of the wafer surface. The effective minority carrier lifetime (MCLT) of highly H-terminated wafer is beneficial for obtaining high quality passivation of a-Si:H/c-Si. The wafers passivated by p(n)-doped a-Si:H layers have low MCLT regardless of the initial H-termination quality. On the other hand, the MCLT of wafers incorporating intrinsic (i) a-Si:H as a passivation layer shows sensitive variation with initial cleaning and H-termination schemes. By applying the improved cleaning processes, we can obtain an MCLT of $100{\mu}sec$ after H-termination and above $600{\mu}sec$ after i a-Si:H thin film deposition. By adapting improved cleaning processes and by improving passivation and doped layers, we can fabricate a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction solar cells with an active area conversion efficiency of 18.42%, which cells have an open circuit voltage of 0.670V, short circuit current of $37.31\;mA/cm^2$ and fill factor of 0.7374. These cells show more than 20% pseudo efficiency measured by Suns-$V_{oc}$ with an elimination of series resistance.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.84-87
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• 2014

Protection of solar cell surface is important to prevent from dust, pollen, sand, etc. Therefore, development of large area antifouling film is urgent for high performance of solar cells. The surface of silica spheres was modified to fabricate large area antifouling film. The surface of monodisperse silica spheres has been modified with 3-(trimethoxysilyl) propylmethacrylate (TMSPM) to fabricate large area photonic crystal. Although the surface modification of silica spheres with TMSPM has been failed for the base catalyst, the second trial using acid catalyst showed the following results. The FTIR absorption peak at $1721cm^{-1}$ representing C=O stretching vibration indicates that the TMSPM was attached on the surface of silica spheres. The methanol solution comprised of the surface modified silica spheres (average diameter of 380 nm) and a photoinitiator was poured in the patterned silicon wafer with the dimension of 10 cm x 10 cm and irradiated UV-light during the self-assembly process. The result showed large area crack and defect free nanostructures.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.108-112
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• 2012

Crystalline silicon solar cell remains the major player in the photovoltaic marketplace with 90 % of the market, despite the development of a variety of 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 photovoltaic 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 thickness of silicon wafer is, the worse bow phenomenon is induced. The bow phenomenon is observed when two or more layers of materials of 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 lower paste applications, we observed that the bow could be reduced by up to 40% of the largest value with 130 micron thickness of the wafer even though the conversion efficiency decrease of 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 paste application.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.453-453
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• 2009

Wafer 태양전지와 Back sheet 및 기타 소재를 사용하는 기존의 Photovoltaic Module은 투과성이 존재하지 않으므로 본 논문에서는 태양전지 모듈의 투과특성을 발휘할 수 있는 Glass to Glass (GtG) Type의 Photovoltaic module에 대해 그 투과 특성 및 효율과의 관계를 분석하였다. 먼저 Module용 소재 중 Poly vinyl butyral (PVB) 및 Ethylene vinyl acetate(EVA) sheet의 Transmittance와 Haze 특성을 분석하였다. GtG 타입의 Photovoltaic Module은 약 90%정도의 투과율을 갖는 강화유리 및 Haze가 없는 PVB sheet를 사용하여 1m $\times$ 1m 크기로 제작하였다. GtG 타입으로 제조한 모둘 중 Cell 16EA를 사용한 모듈은 Cell 25EA를 사용한 모듈에 비해서 36% 투과율이 증가하였으나 효율 면에서 38%감소하였다. 최종적으로 GtG 타입 Module의 효율과 투과율에 관련된 식을 각각 정립하였다.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.23-56
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• 2014

The significant growth of the Si photovoltaic industry has been so far limited due to the high cost of the Si photovoltaic system. In this regard, the most expensive factors are the intrinsic cost of silicon material and the Si solar cell fabrication processes. Conventional Si solar cells have p-n junctions inside for an efficient extraction of light-generated charge carriers. However, the p-n junction is normally formed through very expensive processes requiring very high temperature (${\sim}1000^{\circ}C$). Therefore, several systems are currently under study to form heterojunctions at low temperatures. Among them, carbon nanotube (CNT)/Si hybrid solar cells are very promising, with power conversion efficiency up to 15%. In these cells, the p-type Si layer is replaced by a semitransparent CNT film deposited at room temperature on the n-doped Si wafer, thus giving rise to an overall reduction of the total Si thickness and to the fabrication of a device with cheaper methods at low temperatures. In particular, the CNT film coating the Si wafer acts as a conductive electrode for charge carrier collection and establishes a built-in voltage for separating photocarriers. Moreover, due to the CNT film optical semitransparency, most of the incoming light is absorbed in Si; thus the efficiency of the CNT/Si device is in principle comparable to that of a conventional Si one. In this paper an overview of several factors at the basis of this device operation and of the suggested improvements to its architecture is given. In addition, still open physical/technological issues are also addressed.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.31-41
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• 2016

n-type PERT (passivated emitter, rear totally diffused) bifacial solar cells with boron and phosphorus diffusion as p+ emitter and n+ BSF (back surface field) have attracted significant research interest recently. In this work, the influences of wafer thickness, bulk lifetime, emitter, BSF on the photovoltaic characteristics of solar cells are discussed. The performance of the solar cell is determined by using one-dimensional solar cell simulation software PC1D. The simulation results show that the key role of the BSF is to decrease the surface doping concentration reducing the recombination and thus, increasing the cell efficiency. A lightly phosphorus doped BSF (LD BSF) was experimentally optimized to get low surface dopant concentration for n type bifacial solar cells. Pre-oxidation combined with a multi-plateau drive-in, using limited source diffusion was carried out before pre-deposition. It could reduce the surface dopant concentration with minimal impact on the sheet resistance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.440-440
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• 2009

Semiconductor nanowires offer exciting possibilities as components of solar cells and have already found applications as active elements in organic, dye-sensitized, quantum-dot sensitized, liquid-junction, and inorganic solid-state devices. Among many semiconductors, silicon is by far the dominant material used for worldwide photovoltaic energy conversion and solar cell manufacture. For silicon wire to be used for solar device, well aligned wire arrays need to be fabricated vertically or horizontally. Macroscopic silicon wire arrays suitable for photovoltaic applications have been commonly grown by the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) process using metal catalysts such as Au, Ni, Pt, Cu. In the case, the impurity issues inside wire originated from metal catalyst are inevitable, leading to lowering the efficiency of solar cell. To escape from the problem, the wires of purity of wafer are the best for high efficiency of photovoltaic device. The fabrication of wire arrays by the electrochemical etching of silicon wafer with photolithography can solve the contamination of metal catalyst. In this presentation, we introduce silicon wire arrays by electrochemical etching method and then fabrication methods of radial p-n junction wire array solar cell and the various merits compared with conventional silicon solar cells.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.50-55
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• 2011

Using ultrasonic irradiation, the separation and recovery of PV cell, made of silicon wafer, from PV module was carried out through selective decomposition of EVA used as an interlaminated binder. The ultrasonic cleaner of bath-type (Output: 130 W, Frequency: 40 kHz) was used as an ultrasonic apparatus in this research. With the fixed distance of 2 cm, from ultrasonic generator to PV cell, the experiment of EVA decomposition was performed in various organic solvents such as Toluene, Trichloroethylene, O-dichlorobenzene, Benzene. And also their concentrations and temperature was changed to survey the optimum conditions. However EVA can be decomposed perfectly at $55^{\circ}C$ within 160 min in 5 M of all kinds of solvent, PV cell may be recovered with being damaged or broken severely. This damage may be resulted from the swelling of EVA in the process of decomposition. Whereas, at the condition of 5 M at $65^{\circ}C$, PV cell can be recovered with the state of minor damage or crack. This implies that the decomposition rate of EVA increases with an increase of temperature, thereby EVA can be decomposed before the swelling of EVA layer. Conclusively, it is possible for PV cell to be recovered within 40 min, at $65^{\circ}C$ in 5 M, with less damage.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.109-118
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• 2018

Silicon (Si) solar cells are the most successful technology which are ruling the present photovoltaic (PV) market. In that essence, multijunction (MJ) solar cells provided a new path to improve the state-of-art efficiencies. There are so many hurdles to grow the MJ III-V materials on Si substrate as Si with other materials often demands similar qualities, so it is needed to realize the prospective of Si tandem solar cells. However, Si tandem solar cells with MJ III-V materials have shown the maximum efficiency of 30 %. This work reviews the development of the III-V/Si solar cells with the synopsis of various growth mechanisms i.e hetero-epitaxy, wafer bonding and mechanical stacking of III-V materials on Si substrate. Theoretical approaches to design efficient tandem cell with an analysis of state-of-art silicon solar cells, sensitivity, difficulties and their probable solutions are discussed in this work. An analytical model which yields the practical efficiency values to design the high efficiency III-V/Si solar cells is described briefly.