Periodic nano/micro-hole array silicon solar cell

Guan-Yu Lai; Dinesh P Kumar; Zingway Pei

doi:10.1186/1556-276X-9-654

Periodic nano/micro-hole array silicon solar cell

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2014 Dec 3;9(1):654. doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-9-654. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Guan-Yu Lai¹, Dinesh P Kumar¹, Zingway Pei²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, 250 Ku-Kang Rd, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
² Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, 250 Ku-Kang Rd, Taichung 402, Taiwan ; Graduate Institute of Optoelectronic Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, 250 Ku-Kang Rd, Taichung 402, Taiwan ; Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research Center, National Chung Hsing University, 250 Ku-Kang Rd, Taichung 402, Taiwan.

Abstract

In this study, we applied a metal catalyst etching method to fabricate a nano/microhole array on a Si substrate for application in solar cells. In addition, the surface of an undesigned area was etched because of the attachment of metal nanoparticles that is dissociated in a solution. The nano/microhole array exhibited low specular reflectance (<1%) without antireflection coating because of its rough surface. The solar spectrum related total reflection was approximately 9%. A fabricated solar cell with a 40-μm hole spacing exhibited an efficiency of 9.02%. Comparing to the solar cell made by polished Si, the external quantum efficiency for solar cell with 30 s etching time was increased by 16.7%.

Keywords: Efficiency; Metal catalyst; Nano/microhole Si array; Reflectance.