• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.235-235
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• 2012

We investigated the energy levels of valence region at the planar junction of poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and C61-butyric acid methylester (PCBM) using ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS) with ultra high vacuum. These are the most widely used materials for bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells due to their high efficiency. In order to make the planar junction, we carried out the electrospray vacuum deposition (EVD) of PCBM onto spin-coated P3HT in high vacuum conditions (${\sim}10^{-5}-10^{-6}$). The planar junction interface exhibited 0.71 eV for the offset between P3HT HOMO and PCBM LUMO, which is different from the gap (0.85 eV) of individual values and is closer to the open circuit voltage of solar cells fabricated with the same material combination.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1284-1288
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• 2021

In this work, we propose and design a GaN-based diode with a p-doped GaN (p-GaN) multi-well structure for high efficiency betavoltaic (BV) cells. The short-circuit current density (J_SC) and opencircuit voltage (V_OC) of the devices were investigated with variations of parameters such as the doping concentration, height, width of the p-GaN well region, well-to-well gap, and number of well regions. The J_SC of the device was significantly improved by a wider depletion area, which was obtained by applying the multi-well structure. The optimized device achieved a higher output power density by 8.6% than that of the conventional diode due to the enhancement of J_SC. The proposed device structure showed a high potential for a high efficiency BV cell candidate.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.38-42
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• 2018

Continuous efforts are being made to improve the efficiency of Si solar cells, which is the prevailing technology at this time. As opposed to the standard front-lit solar cell design, the back-lit design suffers no shading loss because all the metal electrodes are placed on one side close to the pn junction, which is referred to as the front side, and the incoming light enters the denuded back side. In this study, a systematic comparison between the two designs was conducted by means of computer simulation. Medici, a two-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool, was utilized for this purpose. The $0.6{\mu}m$ wavelength, the peak value for the AM-1.5 illumination, was chosen for the incident photons, and the minority-carrier recombination lifetime (${\tau}$), a key indicator of the Si substrate quality, was the main variable in the simulation on a p-type $150{\mu}m$ thick Si substrate. Qualitatively, minority-carrier recombination affected the short circuit current (Isc) but not the opencircuit voltage (Voc). The latter was most affected by series resistance associated with the electrode locations. Quantitatively, when ${\tau}{\leq}500{\mu}s$, the simulation yielded the solar cell power outputs of $20.7mW{\cdot}cm^{-2}$ and $18.6mW{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, respectively, for the front-lit and back-lit cells, a reasonable 10 % difference. However, when ${\tau}$ < $500{\mu}s$, the difference was 20 % or more, making the back-lit design less than competitive. We concluded that the back-lit design, despite its inherent benefits, is not suitable for a broad range of Si solar cells but may only be applicable in the high-end cells where float-zone (FZ) or magnetic Czochralski (MCZ) Si crystals of the highest quality are used as the substrate.