Black silicon layer formation for application in solar cells

Low-cost, large area, random and mask less texturing scheme independent of crystal orientation are some of the factors that significantly influence the success of terrestrial photovoltaic technology. This work is focused on the texturing of the silicon surface microstructures by reactive ion etching using a multi-hollow cathode system. Desirable texturing effect has been achieved by applying a radio-frequency power of about 20 W per hollow cathode glow. The etched silicon surface shows almost zero reflectance in the visible region as well as in near-IR region. The silicon surface is covered by columnar microstructures with diameters ranging from 50 to 100 nm and with a depth of about 500 nm. Solar cells with efficiencies of 11.7% and 10.2% with black mono-crystalline and multi-crystalline silicon wafers, respectively, were successfully fabricated and tested.