Influence of Oxygen Gas Ratio on the Properties of Aluminum-Doped Zinc Oxide Films Prepared by Radio Frequency Magnetron Sputtering.

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were deposited on glass and polyimide substrates using radio frequency magnetron sputtering. We investigated the effects of the oxygen gas ratio on the properties of the AZO films for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin-film solar cell applications. The structural and optical properties of the AZO thin films were measured using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), and UV-Visible-NIR spectrophotometry. The oxygen gas ratio played a crucial role in controlling the optical as well as electrical properties of the films. When oxygen gas was added into the film, the surface AZO thin films became smoother and the grains were enlarged while the preferred orientation changed from (0 0 2) to (1 0 0) plane direction of the hexagonal phase. An improvement in the transmittance of the AZO thin films was achieved with the addition of 2.5-% oxygen gas. The electrical resistivity was highly increased even for a small amount of the oxygen gas addition.

Analysis of the Effect of Silicon with Nano-Size Surface Structure on an Electrode Formed Using Screen Printing.

In this paper, we report an investigation into the effects of the texturing size of silicon on the efficiency of a screen-printed Si solar cell. To accomplish this, we produced solar cells with various textured surfaces. The method we used to produce these cells included methods such as anisotropic chemical etching (texturing size of about 4 µm) using a mixed solution of KOH and IPA, reactive ion etching (texturing size of about 0.2 µm), and Ag catalyzed etching (texturing size of about 90 nm). The solar cells with an Ag-catalyzed etching textured structure showed the lowest efficiency of 11.87%, with the highest series resistance of 1.32 Ω. In the case of anisotropic chemical etching, the solar cell had the best efficiency of 17.84%, with the lowest series resistance. This means that the electrodes and silicon surfaces were not well-connected with the nano-sized textured silicon surface. The results revealed that conventional silver paste at an average of 1.6 µm is unsuitable for nano-sized textured Si solar cells.

Structural and Optical Properties of Sputtered Cadmium Telluride Thin Films Deposited on Flexible Substrates for Photovoltaic Applications.

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is a photovoltaic technology based on the use of thin films of CdTe to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity. In this paper, polycrystalline CdTe thin films were deposited using radio frequency magnetron sputtering onto flexible substrates including polyimide and molybdenum foil. The structural and optical properties of the films grown at various sputtering pressures were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), and UV/Nis/NIR spectrophotometry. The sputtering pressure was found to have significant effects on the structural properties, including crystallinity, preferential orientation, and microstructure. Deterioration of the optical properties of CdTe thin films were observed at high sputtering pressure.