Optical modeling of needle like silicon surfaces produced by an ICP-RIE process

Kröll, Matthias; Käsebier, Thomas; Otto, Martin; Salzer, Roland; Wehrspohn, Ralf B.; Kley, Ernst‐Bernhard; Tünnermann, Andreas; Pertsch, Thomas

doi:10.1117/12.854596

Cited by 32 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…The surface texture consists of densely packed needle-like peaks and pits of irregular shape and high aspect ratios (see Figure 2A). Since these features are of subwavelength dimensions the surface can be treated as an effective medium with a smooth varying refractive index n [8,9]. This specific property results in an almost complete suppression of the reflectivity over a broad spectral range making it far more effective than conventional ARCs.…”

Section: Scattering Structures For Light Trappingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light Trapping Concepts for Photon Management in Solar Cells

Sprafke¹,

Wehrspohn

2012

Green

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Photon management is a key component in the development of efficient solar cells. Especially lighttrapping concepts have a high potential to realize enhanced efficiencies. Here, we give an overview over several light trapping concepts for photon management in solar cells. These include basic as well as advanced light-trapping concepts. The theoretical limits of light path enhancement of the different concepts are given and experimental work on these topics is presented. The potential of 3D photonic crystals is discussed in the context of the corresponding approaches as well.

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Section: Scattering Structures For Light Trappingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light Trapping Concepts for Photon Management in Solar Cells

Sprafke¹,

Wehrspohn

2012

Green

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“…The extraordinary antireflection and light trapping features of b-Si may be explained by an intuitive picture: On the one hand, the top of the texture consists of frayed tips of deep sub-wavelength dimensions that broaden slowly toward the wafer. Therefore, the surface can be treated as an effective medium with a smooth varying refractive index resulting in negligible back reflection, even for quasi-omnidirectional light incidence [16,17]. On the other hand, the feature sizes at the bottom of the structure are in the range of a few hundred nanometers, that is, have dimensions of the wavelength of the incoming light.…”

Section: Scattering Structures For Optical Path Enhancementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Concepts for Optical Path Enhancement in Solar Cells

Sprafke¹,

Wehrspohn²

2015

Photon Management in Solar Cells

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The conversion efficiency of a solar cell is directly connected to the number of photons absorbed in the absorber material of the cell. Therefore, it is of critical importance to insert as many photons as possible into the cell and keep them inside the cell until they are finally absorbed. While achieving the first aspect is referred to as antireflection, the second aspect is commonly called optical path enhancement, also known as light Trapping, which is the focus of this chapter. Light trapping in commercially available c-Si solar cells utilizes approaches that are based on ray optics. A common approach to achieve real light trapping is to change the propagation direction of the light such that total internal reflection occurs. A very effective light trapping concept is the full randomization of the propagation directions of the incident sunlight after hitting the first absorber interface

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“…The most widely studied black silicon fabrication techniques are reactive ion etching (RIE) [5,6], and metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) [3,7,8] and produce textures with the lowest reflectivities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlled faceting and morphology for light trapping in aluminum-catalyzed silicon nanostructures

Hainey

Chen

et al. 2016

Journal of Crystal Growth

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Aluminum-catalyzed silicon nanopyramids grown using low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) are presented as an approach to silicon surface texturing. The nanopyramids are grown by vapor-liquid-solid growth using aluminum thin films on silicon. Silicon nanowires with hexagonal cross-sections are formed at a growth temperature of 650 o C; as the temperature is increased to 700 o C, the wires become pyramid-shaped with triangular cross-sections. The silicon nanopyramids are singlecrystal and grow in the <111> direction with (112) facets, as confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. Pyramid tapering increases with increasing growth temperatures and the pyramid arrays grown at 700 o C show reflectivities between 4 and 6% between 400nm and 800nm and appear black to the eye. Based on these results, aluminum-catalyzed nanopyramids present themselves as a plausible alternative to etch-based silicon surface textures.

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Optical modeling of needle like silicon surfaces produced by an ICP-RIE process

Cited by 32 publications

References 0 publications

Light Trapping Concepts for Photon Management in Solar Cells

Light Trapping Concepts for Photon Management in Solar Cells

Current Concepts for Optical Path Enhancement in Solar Cells

Controlled faceting and morphology for light trapping in aluminum-catalyzed silicon nanostructures

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