Abstract
In this study, we fabricate uniform silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays on 6-inch mono- and multi-crystalline wafers by employing the improved solution-processed metal-assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) method. Furthermore, the improved MacEtch can be applied to various crystalline orientation wafers. The SiNW arrays are 470 nm in length with high density; they demonstrate a good optical trapping effect and reflectance well below 6% over a broad wavelength range from 300 to 1100 nm. The improved MacEtch shows no difference in reflectance for a pyramid/SiNW mono-crystalline wafer with appropriate uniformity; the average delta from the center to other positions is within 22%. The effective lifetime is lower for SiNW arrays because the higher surface state causes higher surface recombination.Finally, we make the multi-crystalline wafer into an Al-BSF solar cell device with MacEtch SiNW texture, resulting in an averaged power conversion efficiency of 17.83%, which is higher than that of standard acid-textured solar cell devices. Consequently, the improved MacEtch concept is suitable for commercial mass production in the photovoltaic industry.
Highlights
Silicon nanostructures’ optical properties have attracted tremendous attention due to their excellent light-trapping effect, which results in low reflection and maintains high absorption simultaneously
Despite the remaining concentration of Ag+ in the solution, it uniformly distributes on top of the silicon wafer for etching, as shown in Fig. 2d, and the uniform Silicon Nanowire Arrays (SiNW) arrays cannot be obtained
For the 6-inch P-type mono-crystalline silicon wafer, largescale uniform and low-reflection pyramid/SiNW array structures can be formed, because the reflection is lower than 6% in wavelengths from 400 to 1000 nm and the lowest reflection is about 3% at a 500 nm wavelength
Summary
Silicon nanostructures’ optical properties have attracted tremendous attention due to their excellent light-trapping effect, which results in low reflection and maintains high absorption simultaneously. This effect cannot be found in planar silicon. A researcher approximates nanostructures to antireflective layers to explain their light-trapping effect [12]. Silicon nanostructures can replace traditional costly fabricated antireflective layers. Much of the scientific literature has investigated the electrochemical characteristics of silicon in fluorine ion solution [13, 14] and utilized the metal-assisted method to fabricate nanostructures in solution to make the processes simple and swift. We adopt solutionprocessed metal-assisted chemical etching to fabricate silicon nanostructures [15]. Unlike molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [16], laser ablation [17], chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [18], and reactive-ion etching (RIE) [19], which are high-vacuum and high-energy dependent, metal-assisted chemical etching can reduce fabrication costs and can be processed at room temperature
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