Improvement of silicon nanowire solar cells made by metal catalyzed electroless etching and nano imprint lithography

Abstract

Silicon nanowires were fabricated by metal catalyzed electroless etching (MCEE) and nano imprint lithography (NIL), then a shell p-type layer was grown by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques. To reduce back surface recombination and also to activate the dopant, we used two techniques, back surface field (BSF) treatment and rapid thermal annealing (RTA), to improve device performance. In this study, we investigated BSF and RTA treatments in silicon nanowire solar cells, and improved the device performance and efficiency from 4.1 to 7.4% (MCEE device) and from 1.1 to 6.6% (NIL device) after introducing BSF and RTA treatments. Moreover, to achieve better metal contact without sacrificing the reflectance after the shell formation, the selective-area etching method was investigated. Finally, after combining all processes, silicon nanowire solar cells fabricated via the MCEE process exhibited 8.7% efficiency.