• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.275-279
• /
• 2016

This is a brief review on light trapping in Si based thin film solar cells with textured surfaces and transparent conducting oxide front electrodes. The light trapping scheme appears to be essential in improving device efficiency over 10%. As light absorption in a thin film solar cells is not sufficient, light trapping becomes necessary to be effectively implemented with a textured surface. Surface texturing helps in the light trapping, and thereby raises short circuit current density and its efficiency. Such a scheme can be adapted to single junction as well as tandem solar cell, amorphous or micro-crystalline devices. A tandem cell is expected to have superior performance in comparison to a single junction cell and random surface textures appears to be preferable to a periodic structures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2011.02a
• /
• pp.204-205
• /
• 2011

In thin film silicon solar cells, p-i-n structure is adopted instead of p/n junction structure as in wafer-based Si solar cells. PECVD is a most widely used thin film deposition process for a-Si:H or ${\mu}c$-Si:H solar cells. For best performance of thin film silicon solar cell, the dopant profiles at p/i and i/n interfaces need to be as sharp as possible. The sharpness of dopant profiles can easily achieved when using multi-chamber PECVD equipment, in which each layer is deposited in separate chamber. However, in a single-chamber PECVD system, doped and intrinsic layers are deposited in one plasma chamber, which inevitably impedes sharp dopant profiles at the interfaces due to the contamination from previous deposition process. The cross-contamination between layers is a serious drawback of a single-chamber PECVD system in spite of the advantage of lower initial investment cost for the equipment. In order to resolve the cross-contamination problem in single-chamber PECVD systems, flushing method of the chamber with NH3 gas or water vapor after doped layer deposition process has been used. In this study, a new plasma process to solve the cross-contamination problem in a single-chamber PECVD system was suggested. A single-chamber VHF-PECVD system was used for superstrate type p-i-n a-Si:H solar cell manufacturing on Asahi-type U FTO glass. A 80 MHz and 20 watts of pulsed RF power was applied to the parallel plate RF cathode at the frequency of 10 kHz and 80% duty ratio. A mixture gas of Ar, H2 and SiH4 was used for i-layer deposition and the deposition pressure was 0.4 Torr. For p and n layer deposition, B2H6 and PH3 was used as doping gas, respectively. The deposition temperature was $250^{\circ}C$ and the total p-i-n layer thickness was about $3500{\AA}$. In order to remove the deposited B inside of the vacuum chamber during p-layer deposition, a high pulsed RF power of about 80 W was applied right after p-layer deposition without SiH4 gas, which is followed by i-layer and n-layer deposition. Finally, Ag was deposited as top electrode. The best initial solar cell efficiency of 9.5 % for test cell area of 0.2 $cm^2$ could be achieved by applying the in-situ plasma cleaning method. The dependence on RF power and treatment time was investigated along with the SIMS analysis of the p-i interface for boron profiles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.08a
• /
• pp.318.1-318.1
• /
• 2013

Nowadays Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) solar cell is attracting a lot of attention as a strong alternative to CIGS solar cell due to nontoxic and inexpensive constituent elements of CZTS. From various processes for the fabrication of CZTS solar cell, solution-based deposition of CZTS thin films is well-known non-vacuum process and many researchers are focusing on this method because of large-area deposition, high-throughput, and efficient material usage. Typically the solution-based process consists of two steps, coating of precursor solution and annealing of the precursor thin films. Unlike vacuum-based deposition, precursor solution contains unnecessary elements except Cu, Zn, Sn, and S in order to form high quality precursor thin films, and thus the precise control of precursor thin film preparation is essential for achieving high efficient CZTS solar cells. In this work, we have investigated the effect of preparation condition of CZTS precursor thin films on the performance of CZTS solar cells. The composition of CZTS precursor solution was controlled for obtaining optimized chemical composition of CZTS absorber layers for high-efficiency solar cells. Pre-annealing process of the CZTS precursor thin films was also investigated to confirm the effect of thermal treatment on chemical composition and carbon residues of CZTS absorber layers. The change of the morphology of CZTS precursor thin film by the preparation condition was also observed.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.461-465
• /
• 2011

An aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) film for front contacts of thin film solar cells, in this work, were deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering, and then etched in diluted hydrochloric acid solution for different times. Effects of surface texturing on the electro-optical properties of AZO films were investigated. Also, to clarify the light trapping of textured AZO film, amorphous silicon thin film solar cells were fabricated on the textured AZO/glass substrate and the performance of solar cells were studied. After texturing, the spectral haze at the visible range of 400 ~750 nm increased substantially with the etching time, without a change in the resistivity. The conversion efficiency of amorphous Si solar cells with textured AZO film as a front electrode was improved by the increase of short-circuit current density ($J_{sc}$), compared to cell with flat AZO films.

• Solar Energy
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.74-83
• /
• 1991

In this study, the (p)ZnTe/(n)Si solar cell and (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si poly-junction thin film are fabricated by vaccum deposition method at the substrate temperature of $200{\pm}1^{\circ}C$ and then their electrical properties are investigated and compared each other. The test results from the (p)ZnTe/(n)Si solar cell the (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si poly-junction thin fiim under the irradiation of solar energy $100[mW/cm^2]$ are as follows; Short circuit current$[mA/cm^2]$ (p)ZnTe/(n)Si:28 (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si:6.5 Open circuit voltage[mV] (p)ZnTe/(n)Si:450 (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si:250 Fill factor (p)ZnTe/(n)Si:0.65 (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si:0.27 Efficiency[%] (p)ZnTe/(n)Si:8.19 (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si:2.3 The thin film characteristics can be improved by annealing. But the (p)ZnTe/(n)Si solar cell are deteriorated at temperatures above $470^{\circ}C$ for annealing time longer than 15[min] and the (n)CdS-(p)ZnTe/(n)Si thin film are deteriorated at temperature about $580^{\circ}C$ for longer than 15[min]. It is found that the sheet resistance decreases with the increase of annealing temperature.

• Laser Solutions
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 2011

Globally, the interest of renewable energy has become an upsurge. Especially, the solar industry is the one which is getting rapid growth rate. Many of researchers have been undertaking to improve the efficiency of solar cell to accomplish grid parity. The most of research has been concentrated on two methods, one on the selective emitter and the other is on LBSF (Local Back Surface Field) formation. Laser patterning will be needed to eliminate the thin film to form selective emitter and LBSF of solar cell. This paper reports some experimental results in laser patterning process for high-efficiency crystalline solar cell manufacturing. The experimental results indicate that the patterning quality depends on the average power and repetition rate of laser. The experimental results prove that the laser patterning process is an advantageous method to improve the efficiency of solar cell.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2010.06a
• /
• pp.72.1-72.1
• /
• 2010

Thin film a-Si solar cells deposited by PECVD have many advantages compared to the traditional crystalline Si solar cells. They do not require expensive Si wafer, the process temperature is relatively low, possibility of scaling up for mass production, etc. In order to produce thin film solar cells, understanding the relationship between the material characteristics and deposition conditions is important. It has been reported by many groups that the band gap of the a-Si material and the deposition rate has an linear relationship, when RF power is used to control both. However, when the process pressure is changed in order to control the deposition rate and the band gap, a diversion from the well known linear relationship occurs. Here, we explain this diversion by the deposition condition crossing different plasma regions in the Paschen curve with a simple model. This model will become a guide to which condition a-Si thin films must be fabricated in order to get a high quality film.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.50.1-50.1
• /
• 2009

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) play an important role in thin-film solar cells in terms of low cost and performance improvement. Al-doped ZnO (AZO) is a very promising material for thin-film solar cellfabrication because of the wide availability of its constituent raw materials and its low cost. In this study, AZO films were prepared by low pressurechemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) using trimethylaluminum (TMA), diethylzinc(DEZ), and water vapor. In order to improve the absorbance of light, atypical surface texturing method is wet etching of front electrode using chemical solution. Alternatively, LPCVD can create a rough surface during deposition. This "self-texturing" is a very useful technique, which can eliminate additional chemical texturing process. The introduction of a TMA doping source has a strong influence on resistivity and the diffusion of light in a wide wavelength range.The haze factor of AZO up to a value of 43 % at 600 nm was achieved without an additional surface texturing process by simple TMA doping. The use of AZO TCO resulted in energy conversion efficiencies of 7.7 % when it was applied to thep-i-n a-Si:H thin film solar cell, which was comparable to commercially available fluorine doped tin oxide ($SnO_2$:F).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.230-230
• /
• 2013

In amorphous or microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cells, p-i-n structure is used instead of p/n junction structure as in wafer-based Si solar cells. Hence, these p-i-n structured solar cells inevitably consist of many interfaces and the cell efficiency critically depends on the effective control of these interfaces. In this study, in-situ plasma treatment process of the interfaces was developed to improve the efficiency of a-Si:H solar cell. The p-i-n cell was deposited using a single-chamber VHF-PECVD system, which was driven by a pulsed-RF generator at 80 MHz. In order to solve the cross-contamination problem of p-i layer, high RF power was applied without supplying SiH4 gas after p-layer deposition, which effectively cleaned B contamination inside chamber wall from p-layer deposition. In addition to the p-i interface control, various interface control techniques such as thin layer of TiO2 deposition to prevent H2 plasma reduction of FTO layer, multiple applications of thin i-layer deposition and H2 plasma treatment, H2 plasma treatment of i-layer prior to n-layer deposition, etc. were developed. In order to reduce the reflection at the air-glass interface, anti-reflective SiO2 coating was also adopted. The initial solar cell efficiency over 11% could be achieved for test cell area of 0.2 $cm^2$.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2009.07a
• /
• pp.1351_1352
• /
• 2009

We deposited $SnO_2$:F thin films by atomospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition(APCVD) on corning glass. $SnO_2$:F films were used as transparent conductive oxide (TCO) electrode for Si thin film solar cells. We have investigated structural, electrical and optical properties of $SnO_2$:F thin films and fabricated thin film Si solar cells by plasma enhanced CVD(PECVD) on $SnO_2$:F thin films The cells were characterized by I-V measurement using AM1.5 spectra. Conversion efficiency of our cells were between 5.61% and 6.45%.