Ultrathin mono-crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells with mechanically flexible and stretchable designs, and light-trapping structures

In recent years, research in flexible electronic systems has paid increasing attention to their potential to create and manipulate new classes of applications (e.g., foldable and flexible display, flexible photovoltaic, epidermal electronics, and other systems) that can be integrated outside of conventional wafer-based electronics. With suitable choice of materials and design strategies, inorganic semiconductors (e.g., Si and GaAs) can be used on unconventional substrates for mechanical flexibility and high electrical performance. This thesis presents the fabrication of mono-crystalline silicon micro solar cells by using top-down approaches and a transfer printing technique by elastomeric stamp. I describe four related topics of silicon solar microcells which involve forming structures and assembling them by structured or non-structured elastomeric stamps. Furthermore, this thesis demonstrates a strategy in which modules consist of large-scale arrays of interconnected high-performance ultrathin silicon solar microcells that are mechanically flexible, stretchable, and semitransparent, formed by anisotropic etching of bulk wafers and integrated onto unusual substrates