• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.349-349
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• 2009

High quality ZnO:Al films were prepared on glass substrates by in-line RF magnetron sputtering and their surface morphologies were modified by wet-etching process in dilute acid solution to improve optical properties for application to silicon thin film solar cells as front electrode. The as-deposited films show a strong preferred orientation in [001] direction under our experimental conditions. A low resistivity below $5{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and high optical transmittance above 80% in a visible range are achieved in the films deposited at optimized conditions. After wet-etching, the surface morphologies of the films are changed dramatically depending on the deposition conditions, especially working pressure. The optical properties such as total/diffuse transmittance, haze and angular resolved distribution of light are varied significantly with the surface morphology feature, whereas the electrical properties are seldom changed. The cell performances of silicon thin film solar cells fabricated on the textured films are also evaluated in detail with comparison of commercial $SnO_2$:F films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.431-431
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• 2016

Typical Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS)-based solar cells have a buffer layer between CIGS absorber layer and transparent ZnO front electrode, which plays an important role in improving the cell performance. Among various buffer materials, chemical bath deposition (CBD)-ZnS is being steadily studied to alternative to conventional CdS and the efficiency of CBD-ZnS/CIGS solar cell shows the comparable values with that of CdS/CIGS solar cell. The intriguing thing is that reversible changes occur after exposure to illumination due to the metastable defect states in completed ZnS/CIGS solar cell, which induces an improvement of solar cell performance. Thus, it implies that the understanding of metastable defects in CBD-ZnS/CIGS solar cell is important issue. In this study, we fabricate the ITO/i-ZnO/CBD-ZnS/CIGS/Mo/SLG solar cells by controlling the NH4OH mole concentration (from 2 M to 3.5 M) of CBD-ZnS buffer layer and observe their conversion efficiency with and without light soaking for 1 hr. From the results, NH4OH mole concentration and light exposure can significantly affect the CBD-ZnS/CIGS solar cell performance. In order to investigate that which layer can contain metastable defect states to influence on solar cell performance, impedance spectroscopy and capacitance profiling technique with exposure to illumination have been applied to CBD-ZnS/CIGS solar cell. These techniques give a very useful information on the density of states within the bandgap of CIGS, free carriers density, and light-induced metastable effects. Here, we present the rearranged charge distribution after exposure to illumination and suggest the origin of the metastable defect states in CBD-ZnS/CIGS solar cell.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.114.1-114.1
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• 2011

Electrical sintering of the front electrode for crystalline silicon solar cells was performed applying a constant DC current to the printed lines. Conducting lines were printed on glass substrate by a drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet printer and silver nanoparticle ink. Specific resistance and microstructure of sintered silver lines and were measured with varying DC current. To find the relation between temperature increase with changing applied current and specific resistance, temperature elevation was also calculated. Sintering process finished within a few milliseconds. Increasing applied DC current, specific resistance decreased and grain size increased after sintering. Achieved minimum specific resistance is approximately 1.7 times higher than specific resistance of the bulk silver.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.85.1-85.1
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• 2010

$Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ (CIGS) thin film solar cell is currently 19.5% higher efficiency and developing a large area technology. The structure of CIGS solar cell that make five unit layers as back contact, light absorption, buffer, front transparent conducting electrode and antireflection to make them sequentially forming. Materials and various compositions of thin film unit which also manufacture a variety method used by the physical and chemical method for CIGS solar cell. The construction and performance test of evaporator for CIGS thin film solar cell has been done. The vapor pressures were changed by using vapor flux meter. The vapor pressure were copper (Cu) $2.1{\times}10^{-7}{\sim}3.0{\times}10^{-7}$ Torr, indium (In) $8.0{\times}10^{-7}{\sim}9.0{\times}10^{-7}$ Torr, gallium (Ga) $1.4{\times}10^{-7}{\sim}2.8{\times}10^{-7}$ Torr, and selenium (Se) $2.1{\times}10^{-6}{\sim}3.2{\times}10^{-6}$ Torr, respectively. The characteristics of the CIGS thin film was investigated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy using a He-Ne laser. In PL spectrum, temperature dependencies of PL spectra were measured at 1137 nm wavelength.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.351.2-351.2
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• 2014

Indium tin oxide (ITO) has a lot of variations of its properties because it is basically in an amorphous state. Therefore, the differences in composition ratio of ITO can result in alteration of electrical properties. Normally, ITO is considered as transparent conductive oxide (TCO), possessing excellent properties for the optical and electrical devices. Quantitatively, TCO has transparency over 80 percent within the range of 380nm to 780nm, which is visible light although its specific resistance is less than $10-3{\Omega}/cm$. Thus, the solar cell is the best example for which ITO has perfectly matching profile. In addition, when ITO is used as transparent conductive electrode, this material essentially has to have a proper work function with contact materials. For instance, heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cell could have both front ITO and backside ITO. Because each side of ITO films has different type of contact materials, p-type amorphous silicon and n-type amorphous silicon, work function of ITO has to be modified to transport carrier with low built-in potential and Schottky barrier, and approximately requires variation from 3 eV to 5 eV. In this study, we examine the change of work function for different sputtering conditions using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). Structure of ITO films was investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optical transmittance of the films was evaluated by using an ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.461-465
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• 2016

n-type silicon shows the better tolerance towards metal impurities with a higher minority carrier lifetime compared to p-type silicon substrate. Due to better lifetime stability as compared to p-type during illumination made the photovoltaic community to switch toward n-type wafers for high efficiency silicon solar cells. We fabricated the front electrode of the n-type solar cell with AgAl paste. The electrodes characteristics of the AgAl paste depend on the contact junction depth that is closely related to the firing temperature. Metal contact depth with p+ emitter, with optimized depth is important as it influence the resistance. In this study, we optimize the firing condition for the effective formation of the metal depth by varying the firing condition. The firing was carried out at temperatures below $670^{\circ}C$ with low contact depth and high contact resistance. It was noted that the contact resistance was reduced with the increase of firing temperature. The contact resistance of $5.99m{\Omega}cm^2$ was shown for the optimum firing temperature of $865^{\circ}C$. Over $900^{\circ}C$, contact junction is bonded to the Si through the emitter, resulting the contact resistance to shunt. we obtained photovoltaic parameter such as fill factor of 76.68%, short-circuit current of $40.2mA/cm^2$, open-circuit voltage of 620 mV and convert efficiency of 19.11%.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.13-16
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• 2012

Zinc oxide (ZnO) films were deposited by an RF magnetron sputtering system with the RF power of 200W and 300W and flow rate of oxygen gases of 20 and 30 sccm, in order to research the growth of ZnO on carbon doped silicon oxide (SiOC) thin film. The reflectance of SiOC film on Si film deposited by the sputtering decreased with increasing the oxygen flow rate in the range of long wavelength. In comparison between ZnO/Si and ZnO/SiOC/Si thin film, the reflectance of ZnO/SiOC/Si film was inversed that of ZnO/Si film in the rage of 200~1000 nm. The transmittance of ZnO film increased with increasing the oxygen gas flow rate because of the transition from conduction band to oxygen interstitial band due to the oxygen interstitial (Oi) sites. The low reflectance and the high transmittance of ZnO film was suitable properties to use for the front electrode in the display or solar cell.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.587-593
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• 2013

We demonstrate semitransparent organic photovoltaics (OPVs) based on thin metal electrodes and polymer photoactive layers consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene) and [6,6]-phenyl $C_{61}$ butyric acid methyl ester. The power conversion efficiency of a semitransparent OPV device comprising a 15-nm silver (Ag) rear electrode is 1.98% under AM 1.5-G illumination through the indium-tin-oxide side of the front anode at 100 $mW/cm^2$ with 15.6% average transmittance of the entire cell in the visible wavelength range. As its thickness increases, a thin Ag electrode mainly influences the enhancement of the short circuit current density and fill factor. Its relatively low absorption intensity makes a Ag thin film a viable option for semitransparent electrodes compatible with organic layers.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07c
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• pp.1482-1484
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• 2002

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCI (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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 2014

Ag paste has been used in the front electrode of the Si-solar cell. It is composed by Ag powder, glass frit, binder, solvent and dispersant. The role of the binder and the solvent is to make a flow and a printing property. However, it was not enough to report the printing properties with the variation of binder in the controled viscosity. In this study, we selected 3 kinds of typical binder which were used as binder for the paste in the industry, such as Ethyl cellulose, Hydroxypropyl cellulose and Acrylic. Ag pastes using these were prepared, controled viscosity and printed on the SiNx coated Si wafer. In the 'A paste' used Acrylic binder, printed hight was highest and 'H paste' used Hydroxypropyl cellulose binder was lowest. Because 'H paste' was high viscosity due to the molecular weight, the solvent was added in the paste to control the viscosity. Therefore, the content of solid was lower in 'H paste'. The relative pattern width which is related to the spreading of paste was the best in the case of 'H paste' and 'EH paste' at $30^{\circ}C$. It is thought that the optimization of the relative pattern width is possible for a paste by the controling shear thinning phenomenon. In the case of 'A paste', though printing hight was best, the pattern width was dependant on the temperature.