• 한국재료학회지
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• 제21권9호
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• pp.491-496
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• 2011

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) used in the antireflection layer and current spreading layer of heterojunction solar cells should have excellent optical and electrical properties. Furthermore, TCOs need a high work function over 5.2 eV to prevent the effect of emitter band-bending caused by the difference in work function between emitter and TCOs. Sn-doped $In_2O_3$ (ITO) film is a highly promising material as a TCO due to its excellent optical and electrical properties. However, ITO films have a low work function of about 4.8 eV. This low work function of ITO films leads to deterioration of the conversion efficiency of solar cells. In this work, ITO films with various Zn contents of 0, 6.9, 12.7, 28.8, and 36.6 at.% were fabricated by a co-sputtering method using ITO and AZO targets at room temperature. The optical and electrical properties of Zn-doped ITO thin films were analyzed. Then, silicon heterojunction solar cells with these films were fabricated. The 12.7 at% Zn-doped ITO films show the highest hall mobility of 35.71 $cm^2$/Vsec. With increasing Zn content over 12.7, the hall mobility decreases. Although a small addition of Zn content increased the work function, further addition of Zn content over 12.7 at.% led to decreasing electrical properties because of the decrease in the carrier concentration and hall mobility. Silicon heterojunction solar cells with 12.7 at% Zn-doped ITO thin films showed the highest conversion efficiency of 15.8%.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제43회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.193-193
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• 2012

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 the most widely used thin film deposition process for a-Si:H or ${\mu}c$-Si:H solar cells. Single-chamber PECVD system for a-Si:H solar cell manufacturing has the advantage of lower initial investment and maintenance cost for the equipment. However, in 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 single-chamber PECVD system. In this study, a new plasma process to solve the cross-contamination problem in a single-chamber PECVD system was suggested. In order to remove the deposited B inside of the plasma chamber during p-layer deposition, a high RF power was applied right after p-layer deposition with SiH4 gas off, which is then followed by i-layer, n-layer, and Ag top-electrode deposition without vacuum break. In addition to the p-i interface control, various interface control techniques such as FTO-glass pre-annealing in O2 environment to further reduce sheet resistance of FTO-glass, thin layer of TiO2 deposition to prevent H2 plasma reduction of FTO layer, and hydrogen plasma treatment prior to n-layer deposition, etc. were developed. The best initial solar cell efficiency using single-chamber PECVD system of 10.5% for test cell area of 0.2 $cm^2$ could be achieved by adopting various interface control methods.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.192-195
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• 2012

We reported diborane ($B_2H_6$) doped wide bandgap hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (p-type a-SiOx:H) films prepared by using silane ($SiH_4$) hydrogen ($H_2$) and nitrous oxide ($N_2O$) in a radio frequency (RF) plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system. We improved the $E_{opt}$ and conductivity of p-type a-SiOx:H films with various $N_2O$ and $B_2H_6$ ratios and applied those films in regards to the a-Si thin film solar cells. For the single layer p-type a-SiOx:H films, we achieved an optical band gap energy ($E_{opt}$) of 1.91 and 1.99 eV, electrical conductivity of approximately $10^{-7}$ S/cm and activation energy ($E_a$) of 0.57 to 0.52 eV with various $N_2O$ and $B_2H_6$ ratios. We applied those films for the a-Si thin film solar cell and the current-voltage characteristics are as given as: $V_{oc}$ = 853 and 842 mV, $J_{sc}$ = 13.87 and 15.13 $mA/cm^2$. FF = 0.645 and 0.656 and ${\eta}$ = 7.54 and 8.36% with $B_2H_6$ ratios of 0.5 and 1% respectively.

• 한국전기전자재료학회논문지
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.102-107
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• 2003

This study puts focus on the optimization of growth temperature of CIGS absorber layer which affects severely the performance of solar cells. The CIGS absorber layers were prepared by three-stage co-evaporation of metal elements in the order of In-Ga-Se. The effect of the growth temperature of 1st stage was found not to be so important, and 350$^{\circ}C$ to be the lowest optimum temperature. In the case of growth temperature at 2nd/3rd stage, the optimum temperature was revealed to be 550$^{\circ}C$. The XRD results of CIGS films showed a strong (112) preferred orientation and the Raman spectra of CIGS films showed only the Al mode peak at 173cm$\^$-1/. Scanning electron microscopy results revealed very small grains at 2nd/3rd stage growth temperature of 480$^{\circ}C$. At higher temperatures, the grain size increased together with a reduction in the number of the voids. The optimization of experimental parameters above mentioned, through the repeated fabrication and characterization of unit layers and devices, led to the highest conversion efficiency of 15.4% from CIGS-based thin film solar cell with a structure of Al/ZnO/CdS/CIGS/Mo/glass.

• 공업화학
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• 제26권5호
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• pp.526-532
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• 2015

신 기후변화대응(Post 2020)을 위한 대체에너지의 역할과 더불어 태양전지의 중요성이 높아져 가고 있다. 태양전지의 종류는 크게 재료관점에서 보면 유기물과 무기물 계열로 구분할 수 있지만 대규모 발전역할에서는 현재까지 실리콘과 같이 양산성과 안정성 기반의 무기물 태양전지가 주된 역할을 하고 있다. 특히 최근 몇 년간 화합물반도체 태양전지에 대한 연구는 급속도로 가속화되면서 3-5족 적층형 태양전지, chalcopyrite 계열 $CuInGa(S,Se)_2$ (CIGSSe) 태양전지와 kesterite 계열 $Cu_2ZnSn(S,Se)_4$ (CZTSSe) 태양전지 연구가 대표적으로 주류를 이루어 왔다. 따라서 화합물반도체 태양전지에서 주류를 이루고 있는 3-5족 적층형, CIGSSe 및 CZTSSe 태양전지들의 연구개발동향 및 기술적인 주요내용들에 대해 소개하고자 한다.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2016년도 제50회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.400.2-400.2
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• 2016

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been widely investigated as a next generation solar cell because of their simple structure and low manufacturing cost. To realize a commercially competitive technology of DSSCs, it is imperative to employ a technique to prepare nanocrystlline thin film on the flexible organic substrate, aiming at increasing the flexibility and reducing the weight as well as the overall device thickness of DSSCs. The key operation of glass-to-plastic substrates conversion is to prepare mesoporous TiO2 thin film at low temperature with a high surface area for dye adsorption and a high degree of crystallinity for fast transport of electrons. However, the electron transport in the TiO2 film synthesized at low temperature is very poor. So, in this study, TiO2 films synthesized at high temperature were transferred on the selective substrate. We fabricated DSSCs at low temperature using this method. So, we confirmed that the performance of DSSCs using TiO2 films synthesized at high temperature was improved.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.28-32
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• 2017

In this paper, (Ga,Al):ZnO layers were deposited by sputtering to evaluate the device performance according to the thickness of the layer. As the thickness increased, low transmittance was observed, but the electrical resistance was improved. On the other hand, the highest efficiency was recorded at 400 nm device than a 500 nm of it. Therefore, since the critical thickness exists, it is necessary to set an adequate TCO layer thickness in consideration of the characteristics of the underlying film and the device.

• 한국전기전자재료학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전기전자재료학회 2002년도 하계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.387-390
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• 2002

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon(${\mu}$c-Si:H) films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature below 300$^{\circ}C$. The SiH$_4$ concentration[F(SiH$_4$)/F(SiH$_4$).+(H$_2$)] is critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. At 6% of silane concentration, deposited intrinsic ${\mu}$c-Si:H films shows sufficiently low dark conductivity and high photo sensitivity for solar cell applications. P-type ${\mu}$c-S:H films deposited by Hot-Wire CVD also shows good electrical properties by varying the rate of B$_2$H$\_$6/ to SiH$_4$ gas. The solar cells with structure of Al/nip ${\mu}$c-Si:H/TCO/g1ass was fabricated with single chamber Hot-Wire CVD. About 3% solar efficiency was obtained and applicability of HWCVD for thin film solar cells was proven in this research.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• 제18권2호
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• pp.70-73
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• 2017

We investigated n-i-p type single junction hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide solar cells. These cells were without front surface texture or back reflector. Maximum power point efficiency of these cells showed that an optimized device structure is needed to get the best device output. This depends on the thickness and defect density ($N_d$) of the active layer. A typical 10% photovoltaic device conversion efficiency was obtained with a $N_d=8.86{\times}10^{15}cm^{-3}$ defect density and 630 nm active layer thickness. Our investigation suggests a correlation between defect density and active layer thickness to device efficiency. We found that amorphous silicon solar cell efficiency can be improved to well above 10%.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.43-58
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• 2013

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a unique semiconductor material that exhibits numerous useful properties for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and other applications. Various thin-film growth techniques have been used to produce nanowires, nanorods, nanotubes, nanotips, nanosheets, nanobelts and terapods of ZnO. These unique nanostructures unambiguously demonstrate that ZnO probably has the richest family of nanostructures among all materials, both in structures and in properties. The nanostructures could have novel applications in solar cells, optoelectronics, sensors, transducers and biomedical sciences. This article reviews the various nanostructures of ZnO grown by various techniques and their application in DSSCs. The application of ZnO nanowires, nanorods in DSSCs became outstanding, providing a direct pathway to the anode for photo-generated electrons thereby suppressing carrier recombination. This is a novel characteristic which increases the efficiency of ZnO based dye-sensitized solar cells.