Broadband optical absorption measurement of silicon nanowires for photovoltaic solar cell applications

Abstract

The broadband optical absorption properties of silicon nanowire films fabricated by electroless metal deposition technique followed by HF/Fe(NO 3 ) 3 solutionbased chemical etching at room temperature on p-type silicon substrates have been measured and found absorption higher than that of the solid thin films of equivalent thickness. The observed behavior is effectively explained by light scattering and light trapping though some of the observed absorption is due to a high density of surface states in the nanowires films. Synthesized structures absorbed more than 82 % of incident radiation in case of Cu-deposited silicon nanowires, whereas for Ag it was maximum 83 %, which is much greater than that of the bulk silicon as they absorbed maximum 43 % of the radiation.

Progress and Mechanism of Cu Assisted Chemical Etching of Silicon in a Low Cu2+Concentration Region

“…To reduce the cost, copper was used to replace the expensive noble metals as the metal catalyst by a few researchers. 1,[8][9][10] The nanostructured porous layer has been successfully formed via immersing Cu nanoparticles plating silicon wafer in the HF-H 2 O 2 solution. 9 To simplify the fabrication process of b-Si, one-step MACE was developed.…”