Abstract
Inverted pyramid-texturing of silicon surface has been proven to have great application potential in silicon solar cells. In this paper, we utilized Ag-assisted chemical etching (Ag–ACE) technology combing with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to fabricate an inverted pyramid textured Si surface. We call it Ag@PVP–ACE. The effect of different experimental parameters on etching results was observed. We show that the microstructure of the Si surface exhibited two states as the concentration of NH4HF2 and PVP concentration changed: polishing and inverted pyramid texturing. Meanwhile, we found inverted pyramids easier to form at the high temperature and low H2O2 concentration of the etching system. Consequently, compared to inverted pyramid structures fabricated by nanostructure rebuilding (NSR) technology and Ag@PVP–ACE, we consider that Ag@PVP–ACE technology could become a viable strategy for fabricating inverted pyramid textured Si wafers in Si solar cells production.
Highlights
Light-trapping structure fabrication is an essential step in Si solar cell production [1,2,3].The significant reduction of surface reflectivity enhances light absorption and improves the conversion efficiency of solar cells [4]
metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) has been involved local coupling of redox reactions, catalytically generated electric fields caused by bipolar electrochemical reaction and autonomous movement aroused from self-electrophoresis of noble metal particles [26]
The self-electrophoresis model reported by Peng and his coworkers was that the etching of the local Si layer around noble metal particles and the catalytic electric field further pushed the noble metal particles into the inner of Si wafers [28]
Summary
Light-trapping structure fabrication is an essential step in Si solar cell production [1,2,3].The significant reduction of surface reflectivity enhances light absorption and improves the conversion efficiency of solar cells [4]. Light-trapping structure fabrication is an essential step in Si solar cell production [1,2,3]. As reported in single crystalline silicon (sc-Si) solar cell with the conventional upright pyramid, normally, the average reflectivity is limited to. Various structures of Si prepared by MACE have presented application potentials in fields ranging from solar cells [2,11,12], Si photoelectrodes [13], chemical and biological sensing [14,15,16,17], thermoelectric transform [18,19], Li-ion batteries [20,21,22], semiconductor micro/nano devices [23,24,25] and more. Other catalysts have been reported, such as Pt [32], Pd [33], Au [34],
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