• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.16-21
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• 2010

It is well-known that Boron-doped Cz Si solar cells suffer light-induced degradation due to boron-oxygen defect which is responsible of a reduction in lifetime and hence efficiency. In this paper, we assume that PV solar cell has been connected with variable load to account the real operating condition and it shows different light-induced degradation of Si solar cell. To evaluate the effect of light-induced degradation for solar cell with various load, Single crystalline solar cells are connected with open and short circuits during light exposure. Isc-Voc curve evaluate light induced degradation of solar cells and the reason is explained as a change for serial resistance. From the results, Electrical characteristics of solar cells show better performance under short circuit conditions, after light exposure.

• 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.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2013

The current solar cell industry is experiencing a temporary plateau due to a sluggish economy and oversupply. It is expected that the solar industry can see similar growth to that of the recent past by overcoming the current situation, as there is growing demand globally for solar energy. The current situation led to restructuring of the world's solar industry, and domestic firms will need to have competitiveness through strategic approaches and proprietary technology to survive in the global solar market. Crystalline and amorphous silicon based solar cells have led the solar industry and occupied half or more of the market thus far. They will do so in the future PV market as well by playing a pivotal role in the solar industry. In this paper, the current status and prospects of silicon based solar cells, from materials to comprehensive and high efficiency technology that can emerge in the future, are discussed.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.237-242
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• 2012

At present, crystalline solar cells take up a significant percentage of the solar industry. The ways of increasing the efficiency of crystalline solar cell are texturing and AR(Anti-Reflection) coating, and the purpose of these technologies is to increase the amount of available light on the solar cell by reducing the reflectivity. The reflectance of crystalline silicon solar cell combined with such technologies will be able to predict using the proposed simulation in this paper. The simulation algorithm was made using MATLAB, and it is a combination of the theories of reflection in textured wafer and in anti-reflection coated wafer. The simulation results were divided into three wavelength band and were compared with actual reflectance measured by a spectrometer. The wavelength band from 300 to 380 was named ultraviolet region and the wavelength band from 380 to 780 is named visible region. Finally, the wavelength band from 780 to 1200 named infrared region. When compared with measured reflection data, the simulation results had a small error from 0.4 to 0.5[%] in visible region. The error occurred in the rest two regions is larger than visible region. The extreme error occurred the infrared region is due to internal reflection effect, but in the ultraviolet region, the rationale on reduction phenomenon of reflectance occurred in small range did not proved. If these problem will be solve, this simulation will have high reliability more than now and be able to predict the reflectance of solar cells.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.383-387
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• 2009

Multi-crystalline silicon surface etching without grain-boundary delineation is a challenging task for the fabrication of high efficiency solar cell. The use of sodium hydroxide - sodium hypochlorite (NaOH40% + NaOCl 12%) solution for texturing multi-crystalline silicon wafer surface in solar cell fabrication line is reported in this article. in light current-voltage results, the cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:2 exhibited higher short circuit current and open circuit voltage than those of the cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:1 solution. we have obtained 15.19% conversion efficiency in large area(156cm2) multi-Si solar cells etched in NaOH 40% + NaOCl 12% = 1:1 solution.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.211-215
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• 2017

Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) and wet etching are employed in existing texturing processes to fabricate solar cells. Laser etching is used for particular purposes such as selective etching for grooves. However, such processes require a higher level of cost and longer processing time and those factors affect the unit cost of each process of fabricating solar cells. As a way to reduce the unit cost of this process of making solar cells, an atmospheric plasma source will be employed in this study for the texturing of crystalline silicon wafers. In this study, we produced the atmospheric plasma source and examined its basic properties. Then, using the prepared atmospheric plasma source, we performed the texturing process of crystalline silicon wafers. The results obtained from texturing processes employing the atmospheric plasma source and employing RIE were examined and compared with each other. The average reflectance of the specimens obtained from the atmospheric plasma texturing process was 7.88 %, while that of specimens obtained from the texturing process employing RIE was 8.04 %. Surface morphologies of textured wafers were examined and measured through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and similar shapes of reactive ion etched wafers were found. The Power Conversion Efficiencies (PCE) of the solar cells manufactured through each process were 16.97 % (atmospheric plasma texturing) and 16.29 % (RIE texturing).

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2007

Photovoltaic (PV) technology permits the transformation of solar light directly into electricity. For the last five years, the photovoltaic sector has experienced one of the highest growth rates worldwide (over 30% in 2006) and for the next 20 years, the average production growth rate is estimated to be between 27% and 34% annually. Currently the cost of electricity produced using photovoltaic technology is above that for traditional energy sources, but this is expected to fall with technological progress and more efficient production processes. A large scale production of solar grade silicon material of high purity could supply the world demand at a reasonably lower cost. A shift from crystalline silicon to thin film is expected in the future. The technical limit for the conversion efficiency is about 30%. It is assumed that in 2030 thin films will have a major market share (90%) and the share of crystalline cells will have decreased to 10%. Our research at Sungkyunkwan University of South Korea is confined to crystalline silicon solar cell technology. We aim to develop a technology for low cost production of high efficiency silicon solar cell. We have successfully fabricated silicon solar cells of efficiency more than 16% starting with multicrystalline wafers and that of efficiency more than 17% on single crystalline wafers with screen printing metallization. The process of transformation from the first generation to second generation solar cell should be geared up with the entry of new approaches but still silicon seems to remain as the major material for solar cells for many years to come. Local barriers to the implementation of this technology may also keep continuing up to year 2010 and by that time the cost of the solar cell generated power is expected to be 60 cent per watt. Photovoltaic source could establish itself as a clean and sustainable energy alternate to the ever depleting and polluting non-renewable energy resource.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2007.02a
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• pp.44-44
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• 2007

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.214-219
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• 2009

In high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells, If high-efficiency solar cells are to be commercialized. It is need to develop superior contact formation method and material that can be inexpensive and simple without degradation of the solar cells ability. For reason of plated metallic contact is not only high metallic purity but also inexpensive manufacture. It is available to apply mass production. Especially, Nickel, Copper and Silver are applied widely in various electronic manufactures as easily formation is available by plating. The metallic contact system of silicon solar cell must have several properties, such as low contact resistance, easy application and good adhesion. Ni is shown to be a suitable barrier to Cu diffusion as well as desirable contact metal to silicon. Nickel monosilicide(NiSi) has been suggested as a suitable silicide due to its lower resistivity, lower sintering temperature and lower layer stress than $TiSi_2$. Copper and Silver can be plated by electro & light-induced plating method. Light-induced plating makes use the photovoltaic effect of solar cell to deposite the metal on the front contact. The cell is immersed into the electrolytic plating bath and irradiated at the front side by light source, which leads to a current density in the front side grid. Electroless plated Ni/ Electro&light-induced plated Cu/ Light-induced plated Ag contact solar cells result in an energy conversion efficiency of 14.68 % on $0.2{\sim}0.6{\Omega}{\cdot}cm,\;20{\times}20mm^2$, CZ(Czochralski) wafer.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.43.1-43.1
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• 2010

In the crystalline silicon solar cells, the full area aluminum_back surface field(BSF) is routinely achieved through the screen-printing of aluminum paste and rapid firing. It is widely used in the industrial solar cell because of the simple and cost-effective process to suppress the overall recombination at the back surface. However, it still has limitations such as the relatively higher recombination rate and the low-to-moderate reflectance. In addition, it is difficult to apply it to thinner substrate due to wafer bowing. In the recent years, the dielectric back-passivated cell with local back contacts has been developed and implemented to overcome its disadvantages. Although it is successful to gain a lower value of surface recombination velocity(SRV), the series resistance($R_{series}$) becomes even more important than the conventional solar cell. That is, it is a trade off relationship between the SRV and the $R_{series}$ as a function of the contact size, the contact spacing and the geometry of the opening. Therefore it is essential to find the best compromise between them for the high efficiency solar cell. We have investigated the optimal design for the local back contact by using PC1D simulation.