• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.180-182
• /
• 2009

Two different wet etching solutions, NaOH 40% and Acid, were used for etching in tri-crystalline Silicon(Tri-Si) solar cell fabrication. The wafers etched in NaOH40% solution showed higher reflectance compared to the wafers etched in Acid solution after $SiN_x$ deposition. In light current-voltage results, the cells etched in Acid solution exhibited higher short circuit current and open circuit voltage than those of the cells etched in NaOH 40% solution. We have obtained 16.70% conversion efficiency in large area($156cm^2$) Tri-Si solar cells etched in Acid solution.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2016.02a
• /
• pp.314-314
• /
• 2016

In this paper, the effects of carrier concentration on dielectric constant of ITO films were investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry. From SE results, we find the pronounced shift of the ${\varepsilon}1$ peaks toward high energy with concentration; while contrarily, the ${\varepsilon}2$ values at low energy region increases with decreasing concentration. These shifts are attributed to the Burstein-Moss and free-carrier absorption effects within ITO films. With increases carrier concentration, the values of extinction coefficients show quite different behaviors in range of wavelength from 200 to 1200 nm. The reduction in k at ${\lambda}{\leq}500nm$, while increasing at ${\lambda}{\geq}500nm$ was observed. The QE of HJ solar cells behaviors can be roughly classified into two regions: short-wavelengths (${\leq}650nm$) and long-wavelengths region (${\geq}650nm$). With increasing carrier concentration as well as energy band gap, QE shows improvement at short-wavelength, while at long-wavelength QE shows opposite trend. Widening band gap energy due to Burstein-Moss shift is the key to improve QE in short-wavelength; simultaneously FCA effect due to optical scattering is attributed to the reduction in QE at long-wavelength. In spite of band gap extension, Jsc calculated from QE decreases from 34.7 mA/cm2 to 33.2 mA/cm2 with increasing carrier concentration. It demonstrated that FCA effect may more govern Jsc in the HJ solar cells.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.111-120
• /
• 2019

The output power of a crystalline silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic (PV) module is not directly the sum of the powers of its unit cells. There are several losses and gain mechanisms that reduce the total output power when solar cells are encapsulated into solar modules. Theses factors are getting high attention as the high cell efficiency achievement become more complex and expensive. More research works are involved to minimize the "cell-to-module" (CTM) loss. Our paper is aimed to focus on electrical losses due to interconnection and mismatch loss at PV modules. Research study shows that among all reasons of PV module failure 40.7% fails at interconnection. The mismatch loss in modern PV modules is very low (nearly 0.1%) but still lacks in the approach that determines all the contributing factors in mismatch loss. This review paper is related to study of interconnection loss technologies and key factors contributing to mismatch loss during module fabrication. Also, the improved interconnection technologies, understanding the approaches to mitigate the mismatch loss factors are precisely described here. This research study will give the approach of mitigating the loss and enable improvement in reliability of PV modules.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2014.02a
• /
• pp.320-320
• /
• 2014

Amorphous silicon alloy (a-Si) solar cells and modules have been receiving a great deal of attention as a low-cost alternate energy source for large-scale terrestrial applications. Key to the achievement of high-efficiency solar cells using the multi-junction approach is the development of high quality, low band-gap materials which can capture the low-energy photons of the solar spectrum. Several cell designs have been reported in the past where grading or buffer layers have been incorporated at the junction interface to reduce carrier recombination near the junction. We have investigated profiling the composition of the a-SiGe alloy throughout the bulk of the intrinsic material so as to have a built-in electrical field in a substantial portion of the intrinsic material. As a result, the band gap mismatch between a-Si:H and $a-Si_{1-x}Ge_x:H$ creates a barrier for carrier transport. Previous reports have proposed a graded band gap structure in the absorber layer not only effectively increases the short wavelength absorption near the p/i interface, but also enhances the hole transport near the i-n interface. Here, we modulated the GeH4 flow rate to control the band gap to be graded from 1.75 eV (a-Si:H) to 1.55 eV ($a-Si_{1-x}Ge_x:H$). The band structure in the absorber layer thus became like a U-shape in which the lowest band gap was located in the middle of the i-layer. Incorporation of this structure in the middle and top cell of the triple-cell configuration is expected to increase the conversion efficiency further.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.575-579
• /
• 2010

The technologies of Ni/Cu plating contact is attributed to the reduced series resistance caused by a better contact conductivity of Ni with Si and the subsequent electroplating of Cu on Ni. The ability to pattern narrower grid lines for reduced light shading was combined with the lower resistance of a metal silicide contact and an improved conductivity of the plated deposit. This improves the FF (fill factor) as the series resistance is reduced. This is very much requried in the case of low concentrator solar cells in which the series resistance is one of the important and dominant parameter that affect the cell performance. A Selective emitter structure with highly dopeds regions underneath the metal contacts, is widely known to be one of the most promising high-efficiency solution in solar cell processing In this paper the formation of a selective emitter, and the nickel silicide seed layer at the front side metallization of silicon cells is considered. After generating the nickel seed layer the contacts were thickened by Cu LIP (light induced plating) and by the formation of a plated Ni/Cu two step metallization on front contacts. In fabricating a Ni/Cu plating metallization cell with a selective emitter structure it has been shown that the cell efficiency can be increased by at least 0.2%.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.571-574
• /
• 2010

Surface recombination loss should be reduced for high efficiency of solar cells. To reduce this loss, the BSF (back surface field) is used. The BSF on the back of the p-type wafer forms a p+layer, which prevents the activity of electrons of the p-area for the rear recombination. As a result, the leakage current is reduced and the rear-contact has a good Ohmic contact. Therefore, the open-circuit-voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) of solar cells are increased. This paper investigates the formation of the rear contact process by comparing aluminum-paste (Al-paste) with pure aluminum-metal(99.9%). Under the vacuum evaporation process, pure aluminum-metal(99.9%) provides high conductivity and low contact resistance of $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$, but It is difficult to apply the standard industrial process to it because high vacuum is needed, and it's more expensive than the commercial equipment. On the other hand, using the Al-paste process by screen printing is simple for the formation of metal contact, and it is possible to produce the standard industrial process. However, Al-paste used in screen printing is lower than the conductivity of pure aluminum-metal(99.9) because of its mass glass frit. In this study, contact resistances were measured by a 4-point probe. The contact resistance of pure aluminum-metal was $4.2\;m{\Omega}cm$ and that of Al-paste was $35.69\;m{\Omega}cm$. Then the rear contact was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM).

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.59 no.1
• /
• pp.144-151
• /
• 2010

The shadowing effects lead to the serious power losses of the PV module. The shadowing effects are caused by several factors such as leafs, dust, antenna and clouds. The dye-sensitized solar cells are more economical than the conventional silicon solar cell that's why the dye-sensitized solar cells are recently focused on. We carried out research on the efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cell depending on the level of shadow changing the formula of the circuit. The research on the efficiency of the large dye-sensitized solar cell depending on the level of shadow focused on commercialization was carried out. As the results, it is known that the series and parallel connection method is the best choice for the least losses of PV module assemblies. It is especially known that one more series connection is the best choice for the least losses about shadowing effects and current losses in the series and parallel connection.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.20 no.11
• /
• pp.617-622
• /
• 2010

We have studied methods to save Si source during the fabrication process of crystalline Si solar cells. One way is to use a thin silicon wafer substrate. As the thickness of the wafers is reduced, mechanical fractures of the substrate increase with the mechanical handling of the thin wafers. It is expected that the mechanical fractures lead to a dropping of yield in the solar cell process. In this study, the mechanical properties of 220-micrometer-solar grade Cz p-type monocrystalline Si wafers were investigated by varying saw-damage etching conditions in order to improve the flexural strength of ultra-thin monocrystalline Si solar cells. Potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution and tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution were used as etching solutions. Etching processes were operated with a varying of the ratio of KOH and TMAH solutions in different temperature conditions. After saw-damage etching, wafers were cleaned with a modified RCA cleaning method for ten minutes. Each sample was divided into 42 pieces using an automatic dicing saw machine. The surface morphologies were investigated by scanning electron microscopy and 3D optical microscopy. The thickness distribution was measured by micrometer. The strength distribution was measured with a 4-point-bending tester. As a result, TMAH solution at $90^{\circ}C$ showed the best performance for flexural strength.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.939-942
• /
• 2016

One of the most important characteristic curves of a solar cell is its current density-voltage (J-V) curve under AM1.5G insolation. Solar cell can be considered as a semiconductor diode, so a diode equivalent model was used to estimate its parameters from the J-V curve by numerical simulation. Active layer plays an important role in operation of a solar cell. We investigated the effect thicknesses and defect densities (N_d) of the active layer on the J-V curve. When the active layer thickness was varied (for N_d = 8×10¹⁷ cm^-3) from 800 nm to 100 nm, the reverse saturation current density (J_o) changed from 3.56×10^-5 A/cm² to 9.62×10^-11 A/cm² and its ideality factor (n) changed from 5.28 to 2.02. For a reduced defect density (N_d = 4×10¹⁵ cm^-3), the n remained within 1.45≤n≤1.92 for the same thickness range. A small increase in shunt resistance and almost no change in series resistance were observed in these cells. The low reverse saturation current density (J_o = 9.62×10^-11 A/cm²) and diode ideality factor (n = 2.02 or 1.45) were observed for amorphous silicon based solar cell with 100 nm thick active layer.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.26 no.8
• /
• pp.422-426
• /
• 2016

With the increase in installed solar energy capacity, comparison and analysis of the physical property values of solar cells are becoming increasingly important for production. Therefore, research on determining the physical characteristic values of solar cells is being actively pursued. In this study, a diode equation, which is commonly used to describe the I-V behavior and determine the electrical characteristic values of solar cells, was applied. Using this method, it is possible to determine the diode ideality factor (n) and series resistance ($R_s$) based on light I-V measurements. Thus, using a commercial screen-printed solar cell and an interdigitated back-contact solar cell, we determined the ideality factor (n) and series resistance ($R_s$) with a modified diode equation method for the light I-V curves. We also used the sun-shade method to determine the ideality factor (n) and series resistance ($R_s$) of the samples. The values determined using the two methods were similar. However, given the error in the sun-shade method, the diode equation is considered more useful than the sun-shade method for analyzing the electrical characteristics because it determines the ideality factor (n) and series resistance ($R_s$) based on the light I-V curves.