This study investigates the post-thermal treatment effects on the efficiency of silicon heterojunction solar cells, specifically examining the influence of annealing on p-type microcrystalline silicon oxide and ITO thin films. By assessing changes in carrier concentration, mobility, resistivity, transmittance, and optical bandgap, we identified conditions that optimize these properties. Results reveal that appropriate annealing significantly enhances the fill factor and current density, leading to a notable improvement in overall solar cell efficiency. This research advances our understanding of thermal processing in siliconbased photovoltaics and provides valuable insights into the optimization of production techniques to maximize the performance of solar cells.

The low-temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) is a crucial factor in the development of space-grade resistors for temperature stability. Consequently, extensive research is underway to achieve zero TCR. In this study, resistors were deposited by co-sputtering nickel-chromium-based composite compositions, metals showing positive TCR, with SiO₂, introducing negative TCR components. It was observed that achieving zero TCR is feasible by adjusting the proportion of negative TCR components in the deposited thin film resistors within certain compositions. Additionally, the correlation between TCR and deposition conditions, such as sputtering power, Ar pressure, and surface roughness, was investigated. We anticipate that these findings will contribute to the study of resistors with very low TCR, thereby enhancing the reliability of space-level resistors operating under high temperatures.

p-type Tunnel Oxide Passivating Contacts (TOPCon) solar cell is fabricated with a poly-Si/SiO_x structure. It simultaneously achieves surface passivation and enhances the carriers’ selective collection, which is a promising technology for conventional solar cells. The quality of passivation is depended on the quality of the tunnel oxide layer at the interface with the c-Si wafer, which is affected by the bond of SiO formed during the subsequent annealing process. The highest cell efficiency reported to date for the laboratory scale has increased to 26.1%, fabricated by the Institute for Solar Energy Research. The cells used a p-type float zone silicon with an interdigitated back contact (IBC) structure that fabricates poly-Si and SiO_x layer achieves the highest implied open-circuit voltage (iV_oc) is 750 mV, and the highest level of edge passivation is 40%. This review presents an overview of p-type TOPCon technologies, including the ultra-thin silicon oxide layer (SiO_x) and poly-silicon layer (poly-Si), as well as the advancement of the SiO_x and poly-Si layers. Subsequently, the limitations of improving efficiency are discussed in detail. Consequently, it is expected to provide a basis for the simplification of industrial mass production.

a-Si is commonly considered as a primary candidate for the formation of passivation layer in heterojunction (HIT) solar cells. However, there are some problems when using this material such as significant losses due to recombination and parasitic absorption. To reduce these problems, a wide bandgap material is needed. A wide bandgap has a positive influence on effective transmittance, reduction of the parasitic absorption, and prevention of unnecessary epitaxial growth. In this paper, the adoption of a-SiO_x:H as the intrinsic layer was discussed. To increase lifetime and conductivity, oxygen concentration control is crucial because it is correlated with the thickness, bonding defect, interface density (D_it), and band offset. A thick oxygenrich layer causes the lifetime and the implied open-circuit voltage to drop. Furthermore the thicker the layer gets, the more free hydrogen atoms are etched in thin films, which worsens the passivation quality and the efficiency of solar cells. Previous studies revealed that the lifetime and the implied voltage decreased when the a-SiOx thickness went beyond around 9 nm. In addition to this, oxygen acted as a defect in the intrinsic layer. The D_it increased up to an oxygen rate on the order of 8%. Beyond 8%, the D_it was constant. By controlling the oxygen concentration properly and achieving a thin layer, high-efficiency HIT solar cells can be fabricated.

In order to achieve a high efficiency for the silicon solar cell, a passivation characteristic that minimizes the electrical loss at a silicon interface is required. In this paper, we evaluated the applicability of the oxide film formed by ozone for the tunnel silicon oxide film. To this end, we fabricated the silicon oxide film by changing the condition of ozone oxidation and compared the characteristics with the oxide film formed by the existing nitric acid solution. The ozone oxidation was formed in the temperature range of 300~500℃ at an ozone concentration of 17.5 wt%, and the passivation characteristics were compared. Compared to the silicon oxide film formed by nitric acid oxidation, implied open circuit voltage (iVoc) was improved by ~20 mV in the ozone oxidation and the ozone oxidation after the nitric acid pretreatment was improved by ~30 mV.

Highly photosensitive and wide bandgap amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO_x:H) films were developed at low temperature ranges (100~150℃) with employing plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition by optimizing H₂/SiH₄ gas ratio and CO₂ flow. Photosensitivity more than 10⁵ and wide bandgap (1.81~1.85 eV) properties were used for making the a-SiO_x:H thin film solar cells, which exhibited a high open circuit voltage of 0.987 V at the substrate temperature of 100℃. In addition, a power conversion efficiency of 6.87% for the cell could be improved up to 7.77% by employing a new n-type nc-SiO_x:H/ZnO:Al/Ag triple back-reflector that offers better short circuit currents in the thin film photovoltaic devices.

In this paper, the oxide currents of thin silicon oxides is investigated. The oxide currents associated with the on time of applied voltage were used to measure the distribution of voltage stress induced traps in thin silicon oxide films. The stress induced leakage currents were due to the charging and discharging of traps generated by stress voltage in the silicon oxides. The stress induced leakage current will affect data retention in memory devices. The oxide current for the thickness dependence of stress current and stress induced leakage currents has been measured in oxides with thicknesses between 109 Å, 190 Å, 387 Å, and 818 Å which have the gate area 10-³ cm2. The oxide currents will affect data retention and the stress current, stress induced leakage current is used to estimate to fundamental limitations on oxide thicknesses.

Minimizing the carrier recombination and electrical loss through surface passivation is required for high efficiency c-Si solar cell. Usually, SiN_{X}, SiO_{X}, SiON_{X} and AlO_{X} layers are used as passivation layer in solar cell application. Silicon oxide layer is one of the good passivation layer in Si based solar cell application. It has good selective carrier, low interface state density, good thermal stability and tunneling effect. Recently tunneling based passivation layer is used for high efficiency Si solar cell such as HIT, TOPCon and TRIEX structure. In this paper, we focused on silicon oxide grown by various the method (thermal, wet-chemical, plasma) and passivation effect in c-Si solar cell.

Crystalline silicon solar cells with SiNx/SiNx and SiNx/SiOx double layer anti-reflection coatings(ARC) were studied in this paper. Optimizing passivation effect and optical properties of SiNx and SiOx layer deposited by PECVD was performed prior to double layer application. When the refractive index (n) of silicon nitride was varied in range of 1.9∼2.3, silicon wafer deposited with silicon nitride layer of 80 nm thickness and n= 2.2 showed the effective lifetime of 1,370 ㎛. Silicon nitride with n= 1.9 had the smallest extinction coefficient among these conditions. Silicon oxide layer with 110 nm thickness and n= 1.46 showed the extinction coefficient spectrum near to zero in the 300∼1,100 nm region, similar to silicon nitride with n= 1.9. Thus silicon nitride with n= 1.9 and silicon oxide with n= 1.46 would be proper as the upper ARC layer with low extinction coefficient, and silicon nitride with n=2.2 as the lower layer with good passivation effect. As a result, the double layer AR coated silicon wafer showed lower surface reflection and so more light absorption, compared with SiNx single layer. With the completed solar cell with SiNx/SiNx of n= 2.2/1.9 and SiNx/SiOx of n= 2.2/1.46, the electrical characteristics was improved as ΔVoc= 3.7 mV, ΔJsc= 0.11 mA/cm2 and Δ Voc= 5.2 mV, ΔJsc= 0.23 mA/cm2, respectively. It led to the efficiency improvement as 0.1% and 0.23%.