Highly crystallized sputtered silicon with textured morphology for thin-film solar cells

A light-trapping structure with textured morphology for thin-film solar cell is demonstrated in this paper. It is fabricated through Al evaporation, and has a root-mean-roughness (Rms) of about 120 nm and lateral width of about 1 μm for single bulge. A Mo layer is introduced to be a barrier layer. Subsequently sputtered amorphous silicon film is 100% crystallized by Cu induced crystallization. Reflectivity of samples with different silicon thickness is studied to reveal the light-trapping efficiency and the reflectivity as low as 10% is obtained with only 840 nm thick silicon film. This is a low-cost structure promising for future thin-film solar cells with high efficiency.

Research highlights▶ A new type light-trapping structure base on evaporating Al is fabricated with a simple process, without any pre- or post-treatment. ▶ Sputtered amorphous silicon film is 100% crystallized by Cu induced crystallization. ▶ Average reflectivity as low as 10% can be obtained with only 840 nm thick silicon film based on this structure.