• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.487-491
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• 2015

In photovoltaic power generation where minority carrier generation via light absorption is competing against minority carrier recombination, the substrate thickness and material quality are interdependent, and appropriate combination of the two variables is important in obtaining the maximum output power generation. Medici, a two-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool, is used to investigate the interdependency in relation to the maximum power output in front-lit Si solar cells. Qualitatively, the results indicate that a high quality substrate must be thick and that a low quality substrate must be thin in order to achieve the maximum power generation in the respective materials. The dividing point is $70{\mu}m/5{\times}10^{-6}sec$. That is, for materials with a minority carrier recombination lifetime longer than $5{\times}10^{-6}sec$, the substrate must be thicker than $70{\mu}m$, while for materials with a lifetime shorter than $5{\times}10^{-6}sec$, the substrate must be thinner than $70{\mu}m$. In substrate fabrication, the thinner the wafer, the lower the cost of material, but the higher the cost of wafer fabrication. Thus, the optimum thickness/lifetime combinations are defined in this study along with the substrate cost considerations as part of the factors to be considered in material selection.

• Proceedings of the Korea Association of Crystal Growth Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.155-159
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• 1997

We investigated the effect of mechanical backside damage in Czochralski silicon wafer. The intensity of mechanical damage were evaluated by minority carrier recombination lifetime by a laser excitation/microwave reflection photoconductance decay method, photo-acoustic displacement method, X-ray section topography, and wet oxidation/preferential etch methods. The data indicate that the higher the mechanical damage intensity, the lower the minority carrier lifetime, and the photoacoustic displacement values are also increased proportionally.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.107-112
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• 2017

The BCBJ (Back Contact and Back Junction) or back-lit solar cell design eliminates shading loss by placing the pn junction and metal electrode contacts all on one side that faces away from the sun. However, as the electron-hole generation sites now are located very far from the pn junction, loss by minority-carrier recombination can be a significant issue. Utilizing Medici, a 2-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool, the interdependency between the substrate thickness and the minority-carrier recombination lifetime was studied in terms of how these factors affect the solar cell power output. Qualitatively speaking, the results indicate that a very high quality substrate with a long recombination lifetime is needed to maintain the maximum power generation. The quantitative value of the recombination lifetime of minority-carriers, i.e., electrons in p-type substrates, required in the BCBJ cell is about one order of magnitude longer than that in the front-lit cell, i.e., $5{\times}10^{-4}sec$ vs. $5{\times}10^{-5}sec$. Regardless of substrate thickness up to $150{\mu}m$, the power output in the BCBJ cell stays at nearly the maximum value of about $1.8{\times}10^{-2}W{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, or $18mW{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, as long as the recombination lifetime is $5{\times}10^{-4}s$ or longer. The output power, however, declines steeply to as low as $10mW{\cdot}cm^{-2}$ when the recombination lifetime becomes significantly shorter than $5{\times}10^{-4}sec$. Substrate thinning is found to be not as effective as in the front-lit case in stemming the decline in the output power. In view of these results, for BCBJ applications, the substrate needs to be only mono-crystalline Si of very high quality. This bars the use of poly-crystalline Si, which is gaining wider acceptance in standard front-lit solar cells.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.408-413
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• 1995

We investigated the effect of mechanical backside damage upon minority carrier recombination lifetime measurement in Czochralski silicon substrate by laser excitation/microwave reflection photoconductance decay method. The intensity of mechanical damage was evaluated by X-ray double crystal rocking curve, X-ray section topography and wet oxidation/preferential etch methods. The data indicate that the higher the mechanical damage intensity, the lower the minority carrier lifetime, and the threshold full width at half maximum value which affect minority carrier lifetime measurement is about 13 secs.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.111-115
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• 2015

To improve the efficiency of the Si solar cell, high minority carrier life time is required. Therefore, the passivation technology is important to eliminate point defects on the silicon surface, causing the loss of minority carrier recombination. PECVD or post-annealing of thermally-grown $SiO_2$ is commonly used to form the passivation layer, but a high-temperature process and low thermal stability is a critical factor of low minority carrier lifetime. In this study, atomic layer deposition was used to grow the $Al_2O_3$ passivation layer at low temperature process. $Al_2O_3$ was selected as a passivation layer which has a low surface recombination velocity because of the fixed charge density. For the high charge density, an improved minority carrier lifetime, and a low surface recombination, nitrogen was doped in the $Al_2O_3$ thin film and the improvement of passivation was studied.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 1999

We investigated the effect of mechanical back side damage in viewpoint of electrical and surface morphological characteristics in Czochralski silicon wafer. The intensity of mechanical damage was evaluated by minority carrier recombination lifetime by laser excitation/microwave reflection photoconductance decay technique, atomic force microscope, optical microscope, wet oxidation/preferential etching methods. The data indicate that the higher the mechanical damage degree, the lower the minority carrier lifetime, and surface roughness, damage depth and density of oxidation induced stacking fault increased proportionally.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.318-321
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• 2002

This paper presents a proper condition to achieve high conversion efficiency using PC1D simulator on sri-crystalline Si solar cells. Various efficiency influencing parameters such as rear surface recombination velocity and minority carrier diffusion length in the base region, front surface recombination velocity, junction depth and doping concentration in the Emitter layer, BSF thickness and doping concentration were investigated. Optimized cell parameters were given as rear surface recombination of 1000 cm/s, minority carrier diffusion length in the base region 200 $\mu\textrm{m}$, front surface recombination velocity 100 cm/s, sheet resistivity of emitter layer 100 Ω/$\square$, BSF thickness 5 $\mu\textrm{m}$, doping concentration 5${\times}$10$\^$19/ cm$\^$-3/. Among the investigated variables, we learn that a diffusion length of base layer acts as a key factor to achieve conversion efficiency higher than 19 %.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.187-191
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• 2004

In this work, we used the PCID simulator for simulation of solar cell and examined the effect of front-back surface recombination velocity, minority carrier diffusion length, junction depth and emitter sheet-resistance. As the effect of base thickness, the efficiency decreased by the increase in series resistance with the increase of the thickness and found decrease in efficiency by decrease of the current as the effect of the recombination. Also, as the effect of base resistivity, the efficiency increased somewhat with the decrease in resistivity, but when the resistivity exceeded certain value, the efficiency decreased as a increase in the recombination ratio. The optimum efficiency was obtained at the resistivity 0.5 $\Omega$-cm, and thickness $100\mu\textrm{m}$. We have successfully achieved 10.8% and 13.7% efficiency large area($103mm{\times}103mm$) mono-crystalline silicon solar cells without and with PECVD silicon nitride antireflection coating.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.157-161
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• 1999

We investigated the effect of mechanical back side damage in Czochralski silicon wafer. The intensity of mechanical damage was evaluated by minority carrier recombination lifetime by laser excitation/microwave reflection photoconductance decay ($\mu$-PCD) technique, wet oxidation/preferential etching methods, near surface micro defect (NSMD) analysis, and X-ray section topography. The data indicate that the higher the mechanical damage intensity, the lower the minority carrier lifetime, and NSMD density increased proportionally, also correlated to the oxidation induced stacking fault (OISF) density. Thus, NSMD technique can be used separately from conventional etching method in OISF measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.117-123
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• 1998

We investigated the effect of mechanical backside damage in Czochralski grown silicon wafer. The intensity of mechanical damage was evaluated by minority carrier recombination lifetime by laser excitation/microwave reflection photoconductivity decay method, photo-acoustic displacement method, X-ray section topography, and wet oxidation/preferential etching methods. The data indicate that the higher the mechanical damage intensity, the lower the minority carrier lifetime, and the photo-acoustic displacement values increased proportionally, and it was at Grade 1: Grade 2:Grade 3 = 1:19.6:41 that the normalized relative quantization ratio of excess photo-acoustic displacement in damaged wafer was calculated, which are normalized to the excess PAD from sample Grade 1.