Sung-jin Choi

Experimental and simulation study for ultrathin (∼100 μm) mono crystalline silicon solar cell with 156×156 mm2 area

A reduction in silicon material consumption in the photovoltaic industry is required for cost reduction. Using crystalline silicon wafers of less than 120 microns of thickness is a promising way for cost and material reduction in the solar cell production. The standard thickness of crystalline silicon solar cells is currently around 180 microns. If the wafers are thinner than 100 microns in the silicon solar cells, the amount of silicon will be reduced by almost half, which should result in prominent cost reduction. With this aim, many groups have worked with thin crystalline silicon wafers. However, most of them have studied with small size substrates. In this paper, we present the electrical characteristics for thin single crystalline silicon solar cells of 100 and 115 μm thickness and 156×156 mm2 area manufactured through a conventional process. We have achieved 17.2% conversion efficiency with a 115 μm silicon substrate and 16.8% with a 100 μm substrate. This enables the commercialization of the thin crystalline silicon solar cells with high conversion efficiency. We also suggest issues to be solved in thin crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturing.

Effects of Current-injection Firing with Ag Paste in a Boron Emitter

A high contact resistance for screen-printed contacts was observed when a conventional Ag paste was used on a boron emitter. The results of this study suggest that electron injection during firing is one of the processes that contribute to a lower contact resistance. Larger quantities of Ag precipitates formed upon electron injection into the boron emitter, which was confirmed by observing Ag crystallite or dendrite structures on the boron and by measuring the contact resistance between the boron emitter and the Ag bulk. The electron-injected sample had approximately 10000 times lower contact resistance than an untreated sample. The contact resistance of the electron-injected sample was 0.021 mΩ∙cm2 under optimal conditions, which is lower than that of conventional p-type silicon solar cells. Thus, electron injection can effectively lower contact resistance when using Ag paste in n-type silicon solar cells. During the cooling in the firing process, dissolved Ag ions in the glass layer are formed as dendrites or crystallites/particles. The dendrites are formed earlier than others via electrochemical migration under electron injection conditions. Then, crystallites and particles are formed via a silicon etching reaction. Thus, Ag ions that are not formed as dendrites will form as crystallites or particles.

Structural evolution of tunneling oxide passivating contact upon thermal annealing

We report on the structural evolution of tunneling oxide passivating contact (TOPCon) for high efficient solar cells upon thermal annealing. The evolution of doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) into polycrystalline-silicon (poly-Si) by thermal annealing was accompanied with significant structural changes. Annealing at 600 °C for one minute introduced an increase in the implied open circuit voltage (Voc) due to the hydrogen motion, but the implied Voc decreased again at 600 °C for five minutes. At annealing temperature above 800 °C, a-Si:H crystallized and formed poly-Si and thickness of tunneling oxide slightly decreased. The thickness of the interface tunneling oxide gradually decreased and the pinholes are formed through the tunneling oxide at a higher annealing temperature up to 1000 °C, which introduced the deteriorated carrier selectivity of the TOPCon structure. Our results indicate a correlation between the structural evolution of the TOPCon passivating contact and its passivation property at different stages of structural transition from the a-Si:H to the poly-Si as well as changes in the thickness profile of the tunneling oxide upon thermal annealing. Our result suggests that there is an optimum thickness of the tunneling oxide for passivating electron contact, in a range between 1.2 to 1.5 nm.

Use of antireflection layers to avoid ghost plating on Ni/Cu plated crystalline silicon solar cells

Screen printing is a method commonly used for making electrodes for crystalline silicon solar cells. Although the screen-printing method is fast and easy, screen-printed electrodes have a porous structure, high contact resistance, and low aspect ratio. On the other hand, plated electrodes have low contact resistance and narrow electrode width. Therefore, the plating method could be substituted for the screen-printing method in crystalline silicon solar cells. During the plating process, ghost plating can appear at the surface when the quality of the passivation layer is poor, causing an increase in the recombination rate. In this paper, light-induced plating was applied to the fabrication of electrodes, and various passivation layers were investigated to remove ghost plating in crystalline silicon solar cells. These included, (1) SiNx deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), (2) a double SiNx layer formed by PECVD, (3) a double layer with thermal silicon oxide and SiNx deposited by PECVD, and (4) a double layer comprising SiNx and SiOx formed by PECVD. For the plated solar cells, a laser was used to remove various antireflection coating (ARC) layers and phosphoric acid was spin-coated onto the doped silicon wafer prior to laser ablation. Also, a screen-printed solar cell was fabricated to compare plated solar cells with screen-printed solar cells. As a result, we found that a thermal SiO2/PECVD SiNx layer showed the lowest pinhole density and its wet vapor transmission rate was characterized. The solar cell with the thermal SiO2/PECVD SiNx layer showed the lowest J02 value, as well as improved Voc and Jsc.