New surface microstructure of mono-si wafer textured using wet chemical solutions for solar cell (revised paper (2))

Abstract

Mono-Si textured surface covered with pyramids has been widely used in the solar cell. However, there are few reports of new microstructures instead of pyramids on Mono Si surface. By adding the special additive, we change the anisotropic texturing properties of alkaline solutions to develop a new small tower over Mono Si surface. The surface was evaluated by scanning electron microscopy, minority carrier lifetime instrument and integral reflector. The results show that this new microstructure has the minority carrier lifetime of 9.72 µs, reflectivity of 10.12% within 400–1000 nm, respectively, which are better than that of solar cell based on pyramids structure. By comparing with samples covered with pyramids, it is considered that the new microstructures are suitable for the possible applications of silicon solar cells. In addition, we also found the non-linear relationship between minority carrier lifetime and the tower size.