Performance of nanowire decorated mono- and multi-crystalline Si solar cells

Light trapping ability of a solar cell can be improved by the application of various texturing schemes to the surface of the solar cells. For monocrystalline (mono-c) silicon solar cells, this is practically accomplished through pyramid texturing in a hot alkaline solution. For multicrystalline (multi-c) silicon solar cells, texturing is done by continuous oxidation and random etching of silicon from the surface. In this study, we have used metal assisted etching (MAE) technique to form silicon nanowires on the surface of pyramid textured mono-c, flat mono-c and multi-c silicon solar cells with an area of 156 mm x 156 mm using standard solar cell processing protocols. It was shown that nanowire texturing causes a dramatic decrease in the reflectivity of the cell surface. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics revealed that the solar cells with nanowires on top of pyramid texturing exhibit the best performance among all investigated cell types. This may be attributed to combined effect of nanowires and pyramids on the surface