Effect of porous silicon layer on the performance of Si/oxide photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical cells

Photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical systems were prepared by the formation of a thin porous film on silicon. The porous silicon layer was formed on the top of a clean oxide free silicon wafer surface by anodic etching in HF/H2O/C2H5OH mixture (2:1:1). The silicon was then covered by an oxide film (tin oxide, ITO or titanium oxide). The oxide films were prepared by the spray/pyrolysis technique which enables doping of the oxide film by different atoms like In, Ru or Sb during the spray process. Doping of SnO2 or TiO2 films with Ru atoms improves the surface characteristics of the oxide film which improves the solar conversion efficiency.The prepared solar cells are stable against environmental attack due to the presence of the stable oxide film. It gives relatively high short circuit currents (Isc), due to the presence of the porous silicon layer, which leads to the recorded high conversion efficiency. Although the open-circuit potential (Voc) and fill factor (FF) were not affected by the thickness of the porous silicon film, the short circuit current was found to be sensitive to this thickness. An optimum thickness of the porous film and also the oxide layer is required to optimize the solar cell efficiency. The results represent a promising system for the application of porous silicon layers in solar energy converters. The use of porous silicon instead of silicon single crystals in solar cell fabrication and the optimization of the solar conversion efficiency will lead to the reduction of the cost as an important factor and also the increase of the solar cell efficiency making use of the large area of the porous structures.