• Journal of the Speleological Society of Korea
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• no.82
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• pp.5-7
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• 2007

In this paper, p-n junction formation using screen-printed metalization and co-firing is used to fabricate high-efficiency solar cells on single- crystalline silicon substrates. In order to form high-quality contacts, co-firing of a screen-printed Ag grid on the front and Al on the back surface field is implemented. These contacts require low contact resistance, high conductivity, and good adhesion to achieve high efficiency. Before co-firing, a statistically designed experiment is conducted. After the experiment, a neural network (NN) trained by the error back-propagation algorithm is employed to model the crucial relationships between several input factors and solar cell efficiency. The trained NN model is also used to optimize the beltline furnace process through genetic algorithms.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.111-113
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• 2009

This paper shows that you can achieve high quality N+ emitter layers using a screen printable phosphorous diffusion paste and firing in an infrared belt furnace. Spreading resistance measurement from a beveled sample is used to measure carrier concentration as a function of depth for different phosphorous concentrations. Contours of estimated sheet resistance are shown for different processing conditions. This paper describes newly developed low cost phosphorous pastes. It shows the characterization of the newly developed phosphorous paste (DP99-038). This low cost pastes can easily be printed and make 16% efficiency.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.250-253
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electroless plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. The Ni contact was formed on the front grid pattern by electroless plating followed by anneal ing at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$ for $15{\sim}30$ min at $N_{2}$ gas to allow formation of a nickel-silicide in a tube furnace or a rapid thermal processing(RTP) chamber because nickel is transformed to NiSi at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$. The Ni plating solution is composed of a mixture of $NiCl_{2}$ as a main nickel source. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. The Ni/Cu contact was found to be well suited for high-efficiency solar cells and was successfully formed by using electroless plating and electroplating, which are more cost effective than vacuum evaporation. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electroless and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.98-101
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• 2005

변환 효율이 $16\%$에 근접하는 다결정 실리콘 태양전지를 위한 열처리 공정에 대한 연구를 수행하였다. 고속 열처리 공정이 가능한 RTP 를 사용하여 다결정 실리콘 태양전지의 효율 향상에 요구되는 PECVD $SiN_x$ 반사방지막을 이용한 결정 결함의 수소화 효과를 극대화하는 동시에 양산 가능한 screen-printed contacts 의 특성 (FF >0.76) 올 최적화함으로써 다결정 실리콘 태양전지의 변환 효율을 $15.9\%$까지 향상시킬 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.546-546
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• 2012

Traditional screen printing is still a dominant method to print electrodes on c-Si solar cells. In order to achieve higher efficiency for c-Si solar cells, improvement of the electrode material is one of the key approaches. Shadowing loss can be reduced by using high aspect ratio finger electrode with width of finger electrode less than 80um. The rheological properties of Ag paste for applying c-Si solar cells are improved by using Ag nanowires. The printing properties including the aspect ratio of printed electrode can be improved with higher Thixotropic index (T.I.) values.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.54-54
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• 2009

Ag thick film has been used for electrode materials with the excellent conductivity. Ag electrode is used in screen-printed silicon solar cells as a electrode material. Compared to photolithography and buried-contact technology, screen-printing technology has the merit of fabricating low-priced cells and enormous cells in a few hours. Ag paste consists of Ag powders, vehicles and additives such as frits, metal powders (Pb, Bi, Zn). Frits accelerate the sintering of Ag powders and induce the connection between Ag electrode and Si wafer. Thermophysical properties of frits and reactions among Ag, frits and Si influence on cell performance. In this study, Ag pastes were fabricated with adding different kinds of frits. After Ag pastes were printed on silicon wafer by screen-printing technology, the cells were fired using a belt furnace. The cell parameters were measured by light I-V to determine the short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, FF and cell efficiency. In order to study the relationship between the reactivity of Ag, frit, Si and the electrical properties of cells, the reaction of frits and Si wafer on was studied with thermal properties of frits. The interface structure between Ag electrode and Si wafer were also measured for understanding the reactivity of Ag, frit and Si wafer. The excessive reactivity of Ag, frit and Si wafer certainly degraded the electrical properties of cells. These preliminary studies suggest that reactions among Ag, frits and Si wafer should optimally be controlled for cell performances.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.192-193
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electro less plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electro less and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.686-686
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• 2013

Crystalline silicon solar cell is a semiconductor device that converts light into electrical energy. Screen printing is commonly used to form the front/back electrodes in silicon solar cell. Screen printing method is convenient but usually shows high resistance and low aspect ratio, which cause the efficiency decrease in crystalline silicon solar cell. Recently the plating method is applied in c-Si solar cell to reduce the resistance and improve the aspect ratio. In this paper, we investigated the effect of additional electroless Ag plating into screen-printed c-Si solar cell and compared their electrical properties. All wafers used in this experiment were textured, doped, and anti-reflection coated. The electrode formation was performed with screen-printing, followed by the firing step. Aften then we carried out electroless Ag plating by changing the plating time in the range of 20 sec~5 min and light intensity. The light I-V curve and optical microscope were measured with the completed solar cell. As a result, the conversion efficiency of solar cells was increased mainly due to the decreased series resistance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.347.1-347.1
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• 2016

Screen printing is commonly used to form the electrode for crystalline silicon solar cells. However, it has caused high resistance and low aspect ratio, resulting in decrease of conversion efficiency. Accordingly, Ni/Cu/Ag plating method could be applied for crystalline silicon solar cells to reduce contact resistance. For Ni/Cu/Ag plating, laser ablation process is required to remove anti-reflection layers prior to the plating process, but laser ablation results in surface damage and then decrease of open-circuit voltage and cell efficiency. Another issue with plating process is ghost plating. Ghost plating occurred in the non-metallized region, resulting from pin-hole in anti-reflection layer. In this paper, we investigated the effect of Ni/Cu/Ag plating on the electrical properties, compared to screen printing method. In addition, phosphoric acid layer was spin-coated prior to laser ablation to minimize emitter damage by the laser. Phosphorous elements in phosphoric acid generated selective emitter throughout emitter layer during laser process. Then, KOH treatment was applied to remove surface damage by laser. At this step, amorphous silicon formed by laser ablation was recrystallized during firing process and remaining of amorphous silicon was removed by KOH treatment. As a result, electrical properties as Jsc, FF and efficiency were improved, but Voc was lower than screen printed solar cells because Voc was decreased due to surface damage by laser process. Accordingly, we expect that efficiency of solar cells could be improved by optimization of the process to remove surface damage.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.74-80
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• 2008

To improve the blue responses of screen-printed single crystalline silicon solar cells, we investigated an emitter etch-back technique to obtain high emitter sheet resistances, where the defective dead layer on the emitter surface was etched and became thinner as the etch-back time increased, resulting in the monotonous increase of short circuit current and open circuit voltage. We found that an optimal etch-back time should be determined to achieve the maximal performance enhancement because of fill factor decrease due to a series resistance increment mainly affected by contact and lateral resistance in this case. To elucidate the reason for the fill factor decrease, we studied the resistance analysis by potential mapping to determine the contact and the lateral series resistance. As a result, we found that the fill factor decrease was attributed to the relatively fast increase of contact resistance due to the dead layer thinning down with the lowest contact resistivity when the emitter was contacted with screen-printed silver electrode.