The purpose of this paper is to help those who research and develop solar cells in university laboratories and industrial sites understand the most basic and important quantum efficiency measurement and analysis method in analyzing solar cell performance. Starting with the definition of quantum efficiency, we calculate the theoretical current density according to the band gap of the solar cell material from the solar spectrum, along with a detailed introduction to the measurement and analysis methods, and measure and analyze the theoretical current density and quantum efficiency. We discuss in depth how to analyze the performance of solar cells through Quantum efficiency measurement and analysis of solar cells is a very useful method that can give intuition to solar cell performance analysis as it can analyze solar cells according to depth (front emitter, bulk, rear surface). Students and researchers who study solar cells with a deep understanding of theoretical current density and quantum efficiency measurement analysis are expected to use it as a basis for analyzing solar cell performance.

We have investigated the characteristics of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film solar cell by inserting barrier layer. The conversion efficiency of a-Si thin-film solar cells on graphite substrate shows nearly zero because of the surface roughness of the graphite substrate. To enhance the performance of solar cells, the surface morphology of the back side were modified by changing the barrier layer on graphite. The surface roughness of graphite substrate with the barrier layer grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reduced from ~2 um to ~75 nm. In this study, the combination of the barrier layer on graphite substrate is important to increase solar cell efficiency. We achieved ~ 7.8% cell efficiency for an a-Si thin-film solar cell on graphite substrate with SiNx/SiOx stack barrier layer.

In this paper, we investigated the electrical properties of crystalline silicon solar cell fabricated with Ni/Cu/Ag plating. The laser process was used to ablate silicon nitride layer as well as to form the selective emitter. Phosphoric acid layer was spin-coated to prevent damage caused by laser and formed selective emitter during laser process. As a result, the contact resistance was decreased by lower sheet resistance in electrode region. Low sheet resistance was obtained by increasing laser current, but efficiency and open circuit voltage were decreased by damage on the wafer surface. KOH treatment was used to remove the laser damage on the silicon surface prior to metalization of the front electrode by Ni/Cu/Ag plating. Ni and Cu were plated for each 4 minutes and 16 minutes and very thin layer of Ag with 1 ㎛ thickness was plated onto Ni/Cu electrode for 30 seconds to prevent oxidation of the electrode. The silicon solar cells with KOH treatment showed the 0.2% improved efficiency compared to those without treatment.

In this paper, PV modules using a low-temperature conductive film(LT-CF) as a bonding material between a cell and a solder free ribbon were produced and chracterized, which is more environmental-friendly, cost effective and high efficient. Mainly, filed electrical performance of PV modules using three different types of bonding material; a convetional solder ribbon(SR), a LT-CF and a light-capturing Ribbon(LCR) were compared to comfirm the feasibility of LT-CF as a bonding material. The filed test were conducted for 3 months and results were discussed in terms of amount of output energy production and efficiency.

We give a textured front on silicon wafer for high-efficiency solar cells by using micro contact printing method which uses PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) silicon rubber as a stamp and SAM (self assembled monolayer)s as an ink. A random pyramidal texturing have been widely used for a front-surface texturing in low cost manufacturing line although the cell with random pyramids on front surface shows relatively low efficiency than the cell with inverted pyramids patterned by normal optical lithography. In the past two decades,the micro contact printing has been intensively studied in nano technology field for high resolution patterns on silicon wafer. However, this promising printing technique has surprisingly never applied so far to silicon based solar cell industry despite their simplicity of process and attractive aspects in terms of cost competitiveness. We employ a MHA (16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid) as an ink for Au deposited SiO2/Si substrate. The SiO2 pattern which is same as the pattern printed by SAM ink on Au surface and later acts as a hard resist for anisotropic silicon etching was made by HF solution, and then inverted pyramidal pattern is formed after anisotropic wet etching. We compare three textured surface with different morphology (random texture, random pyramids and inverted pyramids) and then different geometry of inverted pyramid arrays in terms of reflectivity.

Aluminum oxide(Al2O3) film deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known to supply excellent surface passivation properties on crystalline Si surfaces. Since Al2O3 has fixed negative charge, it forms effective surface passivation by field effect passivation on the rear side in p-type silicon solar cell. However, Al2O3 layer formed by ALD process needs very long process time, which is not applicable in mass production of silicon solar cells. In this paper, plasma-assisted ALD(PA-ALD) was applied to form Al2O3 to reduce the process time. Al2O3 synthesized by ALD on c-Si (100) wafers contains a very thin interfacial SiO2 layer, which was confirmed by FTIR and TEM. To improve passivation quality of Al2O3layer, the deposition temperature was changed in range of 150∼350℃, then the annealing temperature and time were varied. As a result, the silicon wafer with aluminum oxide film formed in 250℃, 400℃ and 10min for the deposition temperature, the annealing temperature and time, respectively, showed the best lifetime of 1.6ms. We also observed blistering with nanometer size during firing of Al2O3 deposited on p-type silicon.

Screen printing is commonly used to form the front/back electrodes in silicon solar cell. But it has caused high resistance and low aspect ratio, resulting in decreased conversion efficiency in solar cell. Recently the plating method has been combined with screen-printed c-Si solar cell to reduce the resistance and improve the aspect ratio. In this paper, we investigated the effect of light induced silver plating with screen-printed c-Si solar cells and compared their electrical properties. All wafers were textured, doped, and coated with anti-reflection layer. The metallization process was carried out with screen-printing, followed by co-fired. Then we performed light induced Ag plating by changing the plating time in the range of 20 sec～5min with/without external light. For comparison, we measured the light I-V characteristics and electrode width by optical microscope. During plating, silver ions fill the porous structure established in rapid silver particle sintering during co-firing step, which results in resistance decrease and efficiency improvement. The plating rate was increased in presence of light lamp, resulting in widening the electrode with and reducing the short-circuit current by shadowing loss. With the optimized plating condition, the conversion efficiency of solar cells was increased by 0.4% due to decreased series resistance. Finally we obtained the short-circuit current of 8.66 A, open-circuit voltage of 0.632 V, fill factor of 78.2%, and efficiency of 17.8% on a silicon solar cell.

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.

The formation of front metal contact silicon solar cells is required for low cost, low contact resistance to silicon surface. One of the front metal contacts is Ni/Cu plating that it is available to simply and inexpensive production to apply mass production. Ni is shown to be a suitable barrier to Cu diffusion into the silicon. The process of Ni electroless plating on front silicon surface is performed using a chemical bath. Additives and buffer agents such as ammonium chloride is added to maintain the stability and pH control of the bath. Ni deposition rate is found to vary with temperature, time, utilization of bath. The experimental result shown that Ni layer by SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and EDX analysis. Finally, plated Ni/Cu contact solar cell result in an efficiency of 17.69% on 2×2 cm2, Cz wafer.