• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.153-163
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• 2017

Transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) are attracting considerable attention as an important component for emerging optoelectronic applications such as liquid crystal displays, touch panels, and solar cells owing to their attractive combination of low resistivity (<$10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$) and high transparency (>80%) in the visible region. The solution-based process has unique properties of an easy fabrication procedure, scalability, and low cost compared to the conventional vacuum-based process and may prove to be a useful process for fabricating TCEs for future optoelectronic applications demanding large scale and flexibility. In this paper, we focus on the introduction of a solution-based process for TCEs. In addition, we consider the powder materials used to fabricate solution-based TCEs and strategies to improve their transparent conducting properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.206-206
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• 2011

투명 전도성 산화물 (TCO, Transparent Conductive Oxide) 박막을 태양전지에 적용하기 위해서는 우수한 전기 전도성 및 가시광 영역에서 높은 투과율을 가져야 한다. 대표적인 TCO 물질인 ITO (Indium tin oxide) 박막은 우수한 전기적, 광학적 특성을 가지고 있지만 $400^{\circ}C$ 이상의 고온에서는 전기저항이 급격히 증가하게 되어 실제 태양전지 패널에 적용했을 때 전기적 특성이 저하된다. 따라서 태양전지용 TCO 박막을 개발 시, 뛰어난 고온 안정성이 요구되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 고온 안정적 특성을 지니는 Ga3+를 도핑한 ZnO 계열 TCO인 GZO/ITO multi-layered 박막을 증착하였다. 또한 buffer layer의 두께 변화 및 구조 제어를 통한 최위층 박막의 전기적 특성 및 결정성을 조사하였으며 다층 박막의 계면 간 특성 및 굴절률 제어를 통한 광학적 물성을 연구하였다.

• Current Applied Physics
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1583-1591
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• 2018

We analysed perovskite $CH_3NH_3PbI_{3-x}Cl_x$ inverted planer structure solar cell with nickel oxide (NiO) and spiroMeOTAD as hole conductors. This structure is free from electron transport layer. The thickness is optimized for NiO and spiro-MeOTAD hole conducting materials and the devices do not exhibit any significant variation for both hole transport materials. The back metal contact work function is varied for NiO hole conductor and observed that Ni and Co metals may be suitable back contacts for efficient carrier dynamics. The solar photovoltaic response showed a linear decrease in efficiency with increasing temperature. The electron affinity and band gap of transparent conducting oxide and NiO layers are varied to understand their impact on conduction and valence band offsets. A range of suitable band gap and electron affinity values are found essential for efficient device performance.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.113-116
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• 2005

In this paper, silicon thin-film solar cells(Si- TFSC) and a-Si/c-Si heterojunction solar cells(HJ-cell) are investigated. The Si-TFSC was prepared on glass substrate by depositing $1-3{\mu}m$ thin-film silicons by glow discharge method. The $a-Si:H/{\mu}c-Si:H$ tandem solar cells on textured ZnO:A1 TCO (transparent conducting oxide) showed improved Jsc in top and bottom cells than that on $SnO_2:F$ TCO. This enhancement of jsc resulted from improved light trapping effect by front textured ZnO:A1. The a-Si/c-Si HJ-cells with simple structure without high efficiency features are suffering from low Voc and Jsc. The improvement of front nip and back interface properties by adopting high quality silicon-films at low temperature should be done both for increasing device performances and production cost.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.180-184
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• 2015

Stainless steel (SS) mesh was used to fabricate photoelectrode for flexible dye-seisitzed solar cells (DSSCs) in order to evaluate them as replacements for more expensive transparent conductive oxide(TCO). We fabricated the DSSCs with new type of photoelectrode, which consisted of flexible SS mesh coated with 100 nm thickness titanium (Ti) protective layer deposited using electron-beam deposition system. SS mesh DSSCs with protective layer showed higher efficiency than those without a protective layer. The best cell property in the present study showed the open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.608 V, short-circuit current density (Jsc) of $5.73mA\;cm^{-2}$, fill factor (FF) of 65.13%, and efficiency (${\eta}$) of 2.44%. Compared with SS mesh based on DSSCs (1.66%), solar conversion of SS mesh based on DSSCs with protective layer improved about 47%.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.21 no.9
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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%.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.121-125
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• 2015

BIPV system is one of the best ways to harness PV module. The BIPV system not only produces electricity, but also acts as a building envelope. Thus, it has the strong point of increasing the economical efficiency by applying the PV modules to the buildings. Bifacial solar cells can convert solar energy to electrical energy from both sides of the module. In addition, it is designed as 3 busbar layout which is the same with ordinary mono-facial soalr cells. Therefore, many of the module manufacturers can easily produce the bifacial solar cells without changing their manufacturing equipment. Moreover, bifacial BIPV system has much potential in building application by utilizing glass to glass structure. However, the performance of bifacial solar cells depends on a variety of factors, ranging from the back surface to surrounding conditions. Therefore, in order to apply bifacial solar cells to buildings, an analysis of bifacial PV module performance should be carried out that includes a consideration of various design elements, and reflects a wide range of installation conditions. As a result it found that the white insulation reflector type can improve the performance of the bifacial BIPV system by 16%, compared to the black insulation reflector type. The performance of the bifacial BIPV was also shown to be influenced by inclination angle, due to changes in both the amount of radiation captured on the front face and the radiation transmitted to the rear face through the transparent space. In this study is limited design condition and installation condition. Accordingly follow-up researches in this part need to be conducted.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05b
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• pp.62-65
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• 2002

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Coming 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCl (0.5%) to examine the electrical and surface morphology properties as a variation of the time. The most important deposition condition of surface-textured ZnO films by chemical etching is the processing pressure and the substrate temperature. In low pressures (0.9mTorr) and high substrate temperatures $({\leq}300^{\circ}C)$, the surface morphology of films exhibits a more dense and compact film structure with effective light-trapping to apply the silicon thin film solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.11.2-11.2
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• 2011

A key technological issue related to the implementation of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is the replacement of Pt at the counter electrodes with an inexpensive and electro-chemically stable alternative. Carbon based nanomaterials could be promising candidates, but in practice they exhibit inadequate device performance. Here, we report very thin graphene oxide (GO)/metal hybrid films as transparent counter electrodes for high-efficiency DSSCs. Transparent GO/Pt and GO/Au hybrid films showed cell efficiencies of 9.2 and 9.0%, respectively (improvements of 9.5 and 7.1% over conventional Pt counter electrodes). More interestingly, highly stable DSSCs with GO hybrid films from relatively inexpensive metals such as Cu and Ni have been demonstrated with efficiency values comparable to Pt counter electrodes. The results reported in this study should enable low-cost fabrication of DSSCs because it allows the use of relatively inexpensive metals such as Au, Cu, Ni, and Ag that could not be previously employed in DSSCs with iodide/tri-iodide electrolyte due to corrosion.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2022

Bifacial photovoltaic (PV) technology has received considerable attention in recent years due to the potential to achieve a higher annual energy yield compared to its monofacial PV systems. In this study, we fabricated the bifacial c-Si PV module with a shingled design using the conventional patterned bifacial solar cells. The shingled design PV module has recently attracted attention as a high-power module. Compared to the conventional module, it can have a much more active area due to the busbar-free structure. We employed the transparent backsheet for a light reception at the rear side of the PV module. Finally, we achieved a conversion power of 453.9 W for a 1300 mm × 2000 mm area. Moreover, we perform reliability tests to verify the durability of our Shingled Design Bifacial c-Si Photovoltaic module.