University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Improvement of Silicon Solar Cell Conversion Efficiency with High Throughput Surface Nano-Texturing

Jiang, Jing

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Description

Title
Improvement of Silicon Solar Cell Conversion Efficiency with High Throughput Surface Nano-Texturing
Author(s)
Jiang, Jing
Contributor(s)
Liu, Logan
Issue Date
2011-05
Keyword(s)
  • solar cells
  • silicon solar cells
  • conversion efficiency
  • nanotexturing
  • plasma etching
Abstract
Improving the photoelectric power conversion efficiency of solar cells in a low-cost and reproducible way has been the focus of photovoltaic device research. We demonstrate a quick one-step and mask-free plasma dry etching process for nano-scale texturing of a variety of Si surfaces including the micro-scaled (KOH) textured surface of commercialized solar cells, whose photovoltaic conversion efficiency increased 30% to 50%. With the simple nano-texturing technique, we produced a nano-scale structure directly on the silicon solar wafer surface with high uniformity and density, which can dramatically improve light trapping, dispense with the need for conventional antireflective coating and even potentially supress the surface carrier recombination. The nano-texturing technique is so versatile that it can be applied to various structural forms of bulk silicon (single, poly-, or multicrystalling) to enhance the optical adsorption of the surface and improve the external quantum efficiency of solar cells in the visible and infrared range. Above all, this one-step mask-free nano-texturing technique that produces high efficiency solar cells with high yield and low cost is immediately suitable for industrial mass production.
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46547

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