• Current Photovoltaic Research
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.111-120
• /
• 2019

The output power of a crystalline silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic (PV) module is not directly the sum of the powers of its unit cells. There are several losses and gain mechanisms that reduce the total output power when solar cells are encapsulated into solar modules. Theses factors are getting high attention as the high cell efficiency achievement become more complex and expensive. More research works are involved to minimize the "cell-to-module" (CTM) loss. Our paper is aimed to focus on electrical losses due to interconnection and mismatch loss at PV modules. Research study shows that among all reasons of PV module failure 40.7% fails at interconnection. The mismatch loss in modern PV modules is very low (nearly 0.1%) but still lacks in the approach that determines all the contributing factors in mismatch loss. This review paper is related to study of interconnection loss technologies and key factors contributing to mismatch loss during module fabrication. Also, the improved interconnection technologies, understanding the approaches to mitigate the mismatch loss factors are precisely described here. This research study will give the approach of mitigating the loss and enable improvement in reliability of PV modules.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2015.08a
• /
• pp.76.1-76.1
• /
• 2015

Optical resonances of metallic or dielectric nanoantennas enable to effectively convert free-propagating electromagnetic waves to localized electromagnetic fields and vice versa. Plasmonic resonances of metal nanoantennas extremely modify the local density of optical states beyond the optical diffraction limit and thus facilitate highly-efficient light-emitting, nonlinear signal conversion, photovoltaics, and optical trapping. The leaky-mode resonances, or termed Mie resonances, allow dielectric nanoantennas to have a compact size even less than the wavelength scale. The dielectric nanoantennas exhibiting low optical losses and supporting both electric and magnetic resonances provide an alternative to their metallic counterparts. To extend the utility of metal and dielectric nanoantennas in further applications, e.g. metasurfaces and metamaterials, it is required to understand and engineer their scattering characteristics. At first, we characterize resonant plasmonic antenna radiations of a single-crystalline Ag nanowire over a wide spectral range from visible to near infrared regions. Dark-field optical microscope and direct far-field scanning measurements successfully identify the FP resonances and mode matching conditions of the antenna radiation, and reveal the mutual relation between the SPP dispersion and the far-field antenna radiation. Secondly, we perform a systematical study on resonant scattering properties of high-refractive-index dielectric nanoantennas. In this research, we examined Si nanoblock and electron-beam induced deposition (EBID) carbonaceous nanorod structures. Scattering spectra of the transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) leaky-mode resonances are measured by dark-field microscope spectroscopy. The leaky-mode resonances result a large scattering cross section approaching the theoretical single-channel scattering limit, and their wide tuning ranges enable vivid structural color generation over the full visible spectrum range from blue to green, yellow, and red. In particular, the lowest-order TM01 mode overcomes the diffraction limit. The finite-difference time-domain method and modal dispersion model successfully reproduce the experimental results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.36 no.10
• /
• pp.1049-1054
• /
• 2012

Continued advancements in organic materials have led to the development of organic devices that are thin, flexible, and lightweight and that can potentially be used as low-cost energy-conversion devices. While these devices have many advantages, the environmentally induced degradation of the active materials and the low-work-function electrodes remain a valid concern. Hence, many vacuum deposition processes have been applied to develop low-permeation barrier coatings. In this work, we present the results pertaining to the developed thin-film encapsulation. Multilayer encapsulation involves the use of $SiO_x$ or $SiN_x$ with parylene. The effective water vapor transmission rates were investigated using a Ca-corrosion test. The integration of the developed barrier layers was demonstrated by encapsulating pentacene/$C_{60}$ solar cells, and the results are presented.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.526-532
• /
• 2015

Solar cells with other alternative energies are being importantly recognized related with post-2020 climate change regime formation. In a point of view of materials, solar cells are classified to organic and inorganic solar cells which can provide a plant-scale electricity. In particular, recent studies about compound semiconductor solar cells, such as III-V tandem solar cells, chalcopyrite-series CIGSSe solar cells, and kesterite-series CZTSSe solar cells were rapidly accelerated. In this report, we introduce a research trend and technical issues for the compound semiconductor solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
• /
• 2016.11a
• /
• pp.181-181
• /
• 2016

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (${\mu}c-Si:H$) films have attracted much attention as materials of the bottom-cells in Si thin film tandem photovoltaics due to their low bandgap and excellent stability against light soaking. However, in PECVD, the source gas $SiH_4$ must be highly diluted by $H_2$, which eventually results in low deposition rate. Moreover, it is known that high-rate ${\mu}c-Si:H$ growth is usually accompanied by a large number of dangling-bond (DB) defects in the resulting films, which act as recombination centers for photoexcited carriers, leading to a deterioration in the device performance. During film deposition, Si nanoparticles generated in $SiH_4$ discharges can be incorporated into films, and such incorporation may have effects on film properties depending on the size, structure, and volume fraction of nanoparticles incorporated into films. Here we report experimental results on the effects of nonoparticles incorporation at the different substrate temperature studied using a multi-hollow discharge plasma CVD method in which such incorporation can be significantly suppressed in upstream region by setting the gas flow velocity high enough to drive nanoparticles toward the downstream region. All experiments were performed with the multi-hollow discharge plasma CVD reactor at RT, 100, and $250^{\circ}C$, respectively. The gas flow rate ratio of $SiH_4$ to $H_2$ was 0.997. The total gas pressure P was kept at 2 Torr. The discharge frequency and power were 60 MHz, 180 W, respectively. Crystallinity Xc of resulting films was evaluated using Raman spectra. The defect densities of the films were measured with electron spin resonance (ESR). The defect density of fims deposited in the downstream region (with nonoparticles) is higher defect density than that in the upstream region (without nanoparticles) at low substrate temperature of RT and $100^{\circ}C$. This result indicates that nanoparticle incorporation can change considerably their film properties depending on the substrate temperature.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2011.10a
• /
• pp.35.1-35.1
• /
• 2011

New photovoltaic (PV) materials and manufacturing approaches are needed for meeting the demand for lower-cost solar cells. The prototypal thin-film photovoltaic absorbers (CdTe and $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$) can achieve solar conversion efficiencies of up to 20% and are now commercially available, but the presence of toxic (Cd,Se) and expensive elemental components (In, Te) is a real issue as the demand for photovoltaics rapidly increases. To overcome these limitations, there has been substantial interest in developing viable alternative materials, such as $Cu_2ZnSnS_4$ (CZTS) is an emerging solar absorber that is structurally similar to CIGS, but contains only earth abundant, non-toxic elements and has a near optimal direct band gap energy of 1.4~1.6 ev and a large absorption coefficient of ${\sim}10^4\;cm^{-1}$. The CZTS absorber layers are grown and investigated by various fabrication methods, such as thermal evaporation, e-beam evaporation with a post sulfurization, sputtering, non-vacuum sol-gel, pulsed laser, spray-pyrolysis method and electrodeposition technique. In the present work, we report an alternative method for large area deposition of CZTS thin films that is potentially high throughput and inexpensive when used to produce monolithically integrated solar panel modules. Specifically, we have developed an aqueous chemical approach based on chemical bath deposition (CBD) with a subsequent sulfurization heat treatment. Samples produced by our method were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, absorbance and photoluminescence. The results show that this inexpensive and relatively benign process produces thin films of CZTS exhibiting uniform composition, kesterite crystal structure, and good optical properties. A preliminary solar cell device was fabricated to demonstrate rectifying and photovoltaic behavior.

• The Journal of Korean Institute for Practical Engineering Education
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.75-82
• /
• 2011

Recently the technology of green growth became more important role among the problems of running out of fossil fuels and global warming. To procure a new growth power combined with energy and green growth, a lot of investment for wind power, photovoltaics system, fuel cell and biofuel expanded day by day. Among these, wing power has a merit of a highly economic and no discharge of toxic substance. These days government and industrial companies actively support the development of wind power technology with lots of investment, but domestic related education and equipment still stay in research level when it is compared with foreign advanced countries which lead the wind power technology. Therefore to expand the base of basic skill required in the related industrials and to advance technology, we are in the situation to be needed a development of a new curriculum and educational equipment which is analogous with the actual industrial system. In this paper a development of a new educational equipment for the learning of turbine control is introduced. This educational equipment has been developed for students to get easy understanding for the theory of wind turbine control. And finally to demonstrate the effect of the use of the developed equipments and curriculum a questionnaire carried out.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2009.06a
• /
• pp.33-36
• /
• 2009

고효율 양자점 태양전지를 위하여 $Si_{1-x}C_x$ 박막 내에 Si 양자점을 형성한 박막을 제작하고 그 특성을 분석하였다. $Si_{1-x}C_x$ 박막은 Si과 C target을 co-sputtering하여 증착하였다. C target의 RF power를 변화시켜 $Si_{1-x}C_x$ 박막의 조성비를 조절하였으며, 조성비는 auger electron spectroscopy로 정량적으로 측정하였다. 이 박막들을 질소 분위기에서 후 열처리하여 high resolution transmittance electron microscopy로 확인한 결과 박막 내에 2~10nm 크기의 양자점이 형성된 것을 관측할 수 있었다. 이 양자점은 transmittance electron diffraction과 grazing incident X-ray diffraction을 통해 Si 양자점과 SiC 양자점이 형성되었음을 알 수 있었다. Raman 측정 결과에서는 후 열처리한 $Si_{1-x}C_x$ 박막의 조성비가 증가할 수록 crystal Si peak의 shift가 증가함을 알 수 있었고, 이를 통해 양자점의 크기도 함께 계산할 수 있었다. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy을 통해 후 열처리한 Si1-xCx 박막의 양자점의 형성 원인을 추정하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.226-226
• /
• 2013

Si is a dominant solar material, which is the second most abundant element in the earth giving a benefit in the aspect in cost with low toxicity. However, the inherent limit of Si has an indirect band gap of 1.1 eV resulting in the limited optical absorption. Therefore, a critical issue has been raised to increase the utilization of the incident light into the Si absorber. The enhancement of light absorption is a crucial to improve the performances and thus relieves the cost burden of Si photovoltaics. For the optical aspect, an efficient design of a front surface, where the incident light comes in, has been intensively investigated to improve the performance of photon absorption. Lambertian light trapping can be attained when the light active surface is ideally rough to increase the optical length by about 50 compared to a planar substrate. This suggests that an efficient design may reduce thickness of the Si absorber from the conventional 100~300 ${\mu}m$ to less than 3 ${\mu}m$. Theoretically, a hole-array structure satisfies an equivalent efficiency of c-Si with only one-twelfth mass and one-sixth thickness. Various approaches have been applied to improve the incident light utilization in a Si absorber using textured structures, periodic gratings, photonic crystals, and nanorod arrays. We have designed hole and pillar structured Si absorbers. Four-different Si absorbers have been simultaneously fabricated on an identical Si wafer with hole arrays or pillar arrays at a fixed depth of 2 ${\mu}m$. We have found that the significant enhanced solar cell performances both for the hole arrayed and pillar arrayed Si absorbers compared to that of a planar Si wafer resulting from the effective improvement in the quantum efficiencies.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.168-172
• /
• 2014

Under concentrated illuminations, the solar cells show higher efficiencies mainly due to an increase of the open circuit voltage. In this study, InGaP/InGaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells have been grown by a low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Photovoltaic characteristics of the fabricated solar cells are investigated with a class A solar simulator under concentrated illuminations from 1 to 100 suns. Ideally, the open circuit voltage should increase with the current level when maintained at the same temperature. However, the fabricated solar cells show degraded open circuit voltages under high concentrations around 100 suns. This means that the heat sink design is not optimized to keep the cell temperature at $25^{\circ}C$. To demonstrate the thermal degradation, changes of the device performance are investigated with different bonding conditions and heat sink materials.