Fabrication of Light-Scattering Multiscale Textures by Nanoimprinting for the Application to Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

In this study, nanoimprint processing was used to realize various multiscale textures on glass substrates for application in thin-film photovoltaic devices. The multiscale textures are formed by a combination of large and small features, which proofed to be beneficial for light trapping in silicon thin-film solar cells. Two approaches for the fabrication of multiscale textures are presented in this study. In the first approach, the multiscale texture is realized at the lacquer/transparent conductive oxide (TCO) interface, and in the second approach, the multiscale texture is realized at the TCO/Si interface. Various types of multiscale textures were fabricated and tested in microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cells in p-i-n configuration to identify the optimal texture for the light management. It was found that the best light-scattering multiscale texture was realized using an imprint-textured glass substrate, which contains large craters, in combination with HF-etched TCO (ZnO:Al), which contains small features, on top of the imprint. With this structure (of the second approach), the short-circuit current density of the solar cell devices was improved by 0.6 mA/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-2</sup> using multiscale textures realized by nanoimprint processing.