• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.1015-1020
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• 2012

Resistance of the front electrode is the highest proportion of the ingredients of the series resistance in crystalline silicon solar cell. While resistance of the front electrode is decreased with larger area, it induces the optical loss, causing the conversion efficiency drop. Therefore the front electrode with high aspect ratio increasing its height and decreasing is necessary for high-efficiency solar cell in considering shadowing loss and resistance of front electrode. In this paper, we used the screen printing method to form high aspect ratio electrode by multiple printing. Screen printing is the straightforward technology to establish the electrodes in silicon solar cell fabrication. The several printed front electrodes with Ag paste on silicon wafer showed the significantly increased height and slightly widen finger. As a result, the resistance of the front electrode was decreased with multiple printing even if it slightly increased the shadowing loss. We showed the improved electrical characteristics for c-Si solar cell with repeatedly printed front electrode by 0.5%. It lays a foundation for high efficiency solar cell with high aspect ratio electrode using screen printing.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.295-295
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• 2016

Recently, TCO films with low carrier concentration, high mobility and high work function are proposed beneficial as front electrode in HIT solar cell due to free-carrier absorption in NIR wavelength region and low Schottky barrier height in the front TCO/a-Si:H(p) interface. We report high transmittance and work function zirconium-doped indium tin oxide (ITO:Zr) films with various plasma (Ar/O2 and Ar) conditions. The role of (Ar/O2) plasma was to enhance the work function of the ITO:Zr films whereas the pure Ar plasma based ITO:Zr showed good electrical properties. The RF magnetron sputtered ITO:Zr films with low resistivity and high transmittance were employed as front electrode in HIT solar cells, yield the best performance of 18.15% with an open-circuit voltage of 710 eV and current density of 34.63 mA/cm2. The high work function ITO:Zr films can be used to modify the front barrier height of HIT solar cell.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.228-232
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• 2019

Copper electroplating and electrode patterning using a screen printer are applied instead of lithography for heterostructure with intrinsic thin layer(HIT) silicon solar cells. Samples are patterned on an indium tin oxide(ITO) layer using polymer resist printing. After polymer resist patterning, a Ni seed layer is deposited by sputtering. A Cu electrode is electroplated in a Cu bath consisting of $Cu_2SO_4$ and $H_2SO_4$ at a current density of $10mA/cm^2$. Copper electroplating electrodes using a screen printer are successfully implemented to a line width of about $80{\mu}m$. The contact resistance of the copper electrode is $0.89m{\Omega}{\cdot}cm^2$, measured using the transmission line method(TLM), and the sheet resistance of the copper electrode and ITO are $1{\Omega}/{\square}$ and $40{\Omega}/{\square}$, respectively. In this paper, a screen printer is used to form a solar cell electrode pattern, and a copper electrode is formed by electroplating instead of using a silver electrode to fabricate an efficient solar cell electrode at low cost.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.616-621
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• 2022

Numerical simulation is a good way to predict the conversion efficiency of solar cells without a direct experimentation and to achieve low cost and high efficiency through optimizing each step of solar cell fabrication. TOPCon industrial solar cells fabricated with n-type silicon wafers on a larger area have achieved a higher efficiency than p-type TOPCon solar cells. Electrical and optical losses of the front surface are the main factors limiting the efficiency of the solar cell. In this work, an optimization of boron-doped emitter surface and front electrodes through numerical simulation using "Griddler" is reported. Through the analysis of the results of simulation, it was confirmed that the emitter sheet resistance of 150 Ω/sq along the front electrodes having a finger width of 20 ㎛, and the number of finger lines ~130 for silicon wafer of M6 size is an optimized technology for the front emitter surface of the n-type TOPCon solar cells that can be developed.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.130-133
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• 2019

The Ag crystallite formed during the formation of the front electrode forms a contact between the metal of the electrode and the emitter of the cell. Contact between the electrode and emitter plays an important role in collecting electrons generated by the solar cell. Therefore, Ag crystallite formation is an important factor. In order for solar cells to have good characteristics, it is important to understand the factors influencing the Ag crystallite formation. Factors affecting the formation of Ag crystallites include Si emitter, morphology, Si defect and firing temperature. The influence of surface morphology on Ag crystallite formation was confirmed throughout this study. In the case of fine texturing, the Ag crystallites were formed at the pointed parts. The finer the texturing, the sharper areas and more Ag crystallites were formed. This was confirmed by SEM image and FF calculation.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.15-20
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• 2019

Most high-efficiency n-type silicon solar cells are based on the high quality surface passivation and ohmic contact between the emitter and the metal. Currently, various metalization methods such as screen printing using metal paste and physical vapor deposition are being used in forming electrodes of n-type silicon solar cell. In this paper, we analyzed the degradation factors induced by the front electrode formation process using e-beam evaporation of double passivation structure of p-type emitter and $Al_2O_3/SiN_x$ for high efficiency solar cell using n-type bulk silicon. In order to confirm the cause of the degradation, the passivation characteristics of each electrode region were determined through a quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC).

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.518-523
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• 2017

In commercial solar cells, the pattern of the front electrode is critical to effectively assemble the photo generated current. The power loss in solar cells caused by the front electrode was categorized as four types. First, losses due to the metallic resistance of the electrode. Second, losses due to the contact resistance of the electrode and emitter. Third, losses due to the emitter resistance when current flows through the emitter. Fourth, losses due to the shading effect of the front metal electrode, which has a high reflectance. In this paper, optimizing the number of finger on a $4{\times}4$ solar cell is demonstrated with known theory. We compared the short circuit current density and fill factor to evaluate the power loss from the front metal contact calculation result. By experiment, the short circuit current density($J_{sc}$), taken in each pattern as 37.61, 37.53, and $37.38mA/cm^2$ decreased as the number of fingers increased. The fill factor(FF), measured in each pattern as 0.7745, 0.7782 and 0.7843 increased as number of fingers increased. The results suggested that the efficiency(Eff) was measured in each pattern as 17.51, 17.81, and 17.84 %. Throughout this study, the short-circuit current densities($J_{sc}$) and fill factor(FF) varied according to the number of fingers in the front metal pattern. The effects on the efficiency of the two factors were also investigated.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.29-35
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• 2014

In this study general solar cell production process was complemented, with research on improvement of solar cell efficiency through surface structure and thermal annealing process. Firstly, to form the pyramid structure, the saw damage removal (SDR) processed surface was undergone texturing process with reactive ion etching (RIE). Then, for the formation of smooth pyramid structure to facilitate uniform doping and electrode formation, the surface was etched with HND(HF : HNO3 : D.I. water=5 : 100 : 100) solution. Notably, due to uniform doping the leakage current decreased greatly. Also, for the enhancement and maintenance of minority carrier lifetime, antireflection coating thermal annealing was done. To maintain this increased lifetime, front electrode was formed through Au plating process without high temperature firing process. Through these changes in two processes, the leakage current effect could be decreased and furthermore, the conversion efficiency could be increased. Therefore, compared to the general solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 15.89%, production of high efficiency solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 17.24% was made possible.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.461-465
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• 2011

An aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) film for front contacts of thin film solar cells, in this work, were deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering, and then etched in diluted hydrochloric acid solution for different times. Effects of surface texturing on the electro-optical properties of AZO films were investigated. Also, to clarify the light trapping of textured AZO film, amorphous silicon thin film solar cells were fabricated on the textured AZO/glass substrate and the performance of solar cells were studied. After texturing, the spectral haze at the visible range of 400 ~750 nm increased substantially with the etching time, without a change in the resistivity. The conversion efficiency of amorphous Si solar cells with textured AZO film as a front electrode was improved by the increase of short-circuit current density ($J_{sc}$), compared to cell with flat AZO films.