Femtosecond laser for black silicon and photovoltaic cells

Research status and application prospects of manufacturing technology for micro–nano surface structures with low reflectivity

“…However, the studies have found that the irradiation area of various materials with ultra-fast laser will appear as inerratic regular nanostructure, and the surface reflectance of these nanostructures is about 2% over a wide spectral region, while the photocurrent of silicon solar cells reaches more than 30% in the laser nanostructure-treated zones. [37][38][39][40][41] The nanostructure size is related to many factors, such as the laser wavelength and the laser incident angle. When the laser irradiates vertically, the nanostructure width is about 1/4 to 1/2 of the laser wavelength.…”

“…These nanospikes had about 90% of the absorption rate in the wavelength of 300-2500 nm and change the silicon to ''black silicon'' (as shown in Figure 2(b)). Halbwax and colleagues 40,41 also used femtosecond laser on a silicon surface to obtain a similar ''penguin''-shaped nanostructure with the photocurrent of silicon solar cells increasing by more than 30% in the laser nanotextured zones (as shown in Figure 2(a)). Many scholars have also carried out research related to micro-nano light trapping structures for low reflectivity and high absorption rates for metallic material surface with ultra-fast pulse laser manufacturing technology.…”

MACE nano-texture process applicable for both single- and multi-crystalline diamond-wire sawn Si solar cells

“…This nanostructure is commonly called "black silicon" (b-Si) because of the outstanding ability to enhance light absorption rendering the surface visibly black 19,20,21,22,23,24 . High-quality b-Si can be produced by laser texturing 25,26,27,28 and reactive ion etching (RIE) 2930,3132,33,3435 . For example, a b-Si solar cell with interdigitated back-contacts has achieved over 22% efficiency with the use of an appropriate atomic layer deposition (ALD) passivation of a cryogenically deep reactive ion etched black silicon surface 36 .…”

“…In comparison to such complex techniques, the wet metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) technique has been studied widely due to its low-cost 37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44 . Several metals, such as gold (Au) 28 , platinum (Pt) 45,46,47 , silver (Ag) 48,49,50,51,52 and copper (Cu) 53,54,55 , have been successfully used in MACE (also called MCCE for metal catalyzed chemical etching 56 ). The metal catalysts can be deposited by a number of techniques including sputtering 57 , electrochemical deposition 58, evaporation 59,60 and electro-less displacement 61 .…”

Improvements of laser weldability of aluminum alloys by laser texturization

“…The laser texturization treatments (up to now mainly performed on silicon) usually involves the employment of low power Nd-YAG lasers [6,[9][10][11], excimer laser [12,13] or more recently, Ti:sapphire laser [14,15]. Abdolvand et al have also recently applied a multi-pulse Nd-YAG laser to induce different textures on stainless steel samples [16].…”