In this paper, the influence of nickel silicide thin film on series resistance of silicon solar cells is investigated. The frontside two-layer electrodes are fabricated by the light induced electroless plating of nickel and light-induced plating of silver. The nickel films are deposited onto the silicon wafers surface by light induced electroless plating in the nickel-plating bath containing main nickel source. The nickel film thicknesses of 200 nm, 400 nm and 600 nm are identified by the SEM observations. The formation of nickel silicide thin films are obtained after the thermal annealing process for 1 min, 3 min and 5 min. The nickel silicide thin film reduces the series resistance mainly due to the decrease of contact resistance between metal electrode and silicon substrate. The reduction in contact resistance and series resistance are confirmed by using transmission line model analysis and dark current-voltage characteristics in experiment. The improvement of series resistance extracted from the dark current-voltage curve in the upper voltage range is observed. The minimum series resistances of silicon solar cells with different nickel film thicknesses are obtained after different thermal annealing periods, respectively. The silicon solar cell with nickel film of 400 nm thick after thermal annealing process of 3 min possesses the minimum series resistance of 0.66 Ω cm2.

Coking activities produce high concentrations of aromatic compounds (ACs) and related substances, which may have impacts on human health. However, the health effects of these substances on humans exposed to coking sites have not been fully elucidated. A total of 637 people were recruited to participate in this cross-sectional study. Using multiple linear regression and Bayesian kernel machine regression, we investigated the relationships between the urinary parent or metabolite forms of ACs (including metabolites of PAHs and their derivatives, nitrophenols, and chlorophenols) and hepatorenal biomarkers (HRBs), including total bilirubin, aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase, serum uric acid, creatinine, albumin/globulin, and urea. The HRBs adopted in this study can effectively represent the status of human liver and kidney function. Mediation analysis was performed to investigate the possible mediating relationship between ACs and HRBs using oxidative stress markers as mediators. Our study indicated that ACs were significantly associated with increases in TBIL, AST/ALT, A/G, and UA, as well as a significant decrease in Cr. UREA showed no association with ACs among coking workers. The oxidative stress markers 8-hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine, 8-iso-prostaglandin-F2α, and 8-iso,15(R)-prostaglandinF2α mediated the induction of ACs on TBIL. Our results suggest that AC exposure in coking workers may be associated with adverse changes in hepatorenal biomarkers. This study highlights the significant impact of ACs from coking activities on workers’ hepatorenal biomarkers, providing crucial evidence for health risk assessment and prevention in affected populations.