High-Efficiency 6′′ Multicrystalline Black Solar Cells Based on Metal-Nanoparticle-Assisted Chemical Etching

• Main Authors: W. Chuck Hsu, Yen-Sheng Lu, Jung-Yi Chyan, J. Andrew Yeh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2012-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Photoenergy
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/197514

Multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) photovoltaic (PV) solar cells with nanoscale surface texturing by metal-nanoparticle-assisted etching are proposed to achieve high power efficiency. The investigation of average nanorod lengths from 100 nm to 1 μm reveals that the Si wafer decorated with 100 nm thick nanorods has optical reflection of 9.5% inferior than the one with 1 μm thick nanorods (2%). However, the short nanorods improve the doping uniformity and effectively decrease metal contact resistance. After surface passivation using the hydrogenated SiO2/SiNx (5 nm/50 nm) stack, the minority carrier lifetime substantially increases from 1.8 to 7.2 μs for the 100 nm-thick nanorod solar cell to achieve the high power efficiency of 16.38%, compared with 1 μm thick nanorod solar cell with 11.87%.