Macroporous Silicon Solar Cells With an Epitaxial Emitter

Brendel, Rolf

doi:10.1109/jphotov.2013.2247094

Cited by 16 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…[ 112 ] Below this doping level, other growth regimes interfere and will lead to a rather defect-rich, porous subsurface structure of the macropores. It has been shown by Brendel and co-workers [ 43,113 ] that macropores on n-type silicon can have reasonable low SRV in the order of S eff ≈25-75 cm s -1 for thin 30 µm thick macroporous membranes. This yield similar values of δ max ≈5-10 as for the MACE samples in our study.…”

Section: Analysis Of the Origin Of Recombination-active Surface Defecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black Silicon Photovoltaics

Otto

Algasinger

Branz

et al. 2014

Advanced Optical Materials

185

117

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LT) can be achieved for weakly absorbed photons with energies close to the absorption edge of silicon. [ 15 ] These properties of b-Si are particularly useful for photovoltaic applications.The limiting effi ciency of a solar cell is given by the detailed balance of absorption and radiative recombination [ 16 ] and by nonradiative processes like Auger-and impurity recombination. [17][18][19] b-Si can help to approach those limits in two ways. On the one hand b-Si improves the coupling of light into the solar cell and the absorption of near band edge photons. This in turn increases the short circuit current and on a logarithmic scale also the open circuit voltage. On the other hand, due to excellent light-trapping properties b-Si might also allow reducing the solar cell thickness substantially below 100 µm while sustaining a high light absorption. This reduces nonradiative bulk recombination losses that scale linearly with the solar cell thickness [ 17,18 ] and hence, increases the open-circuit voltage. Of course, reducing the solar cell thickness also increases the cost effi ciency. Decreasing the amount of required silicon feedstock is a major industry concern as can be seen by the growing interest in kerf-free crystalline silicon solar cell technologies. [20][21][22] Unfortunately, besides bulk effects, surface recombination imposes a very critical limit to the solar This article presents an overview of the fabrication methods of black silicon, their resulting morphologies, and a quantitative comparison of their optoelectronic properties. To perform this quantitative comparison, different groups working on black silicon solar cells have cooperated for this study. The optical absorption and the minority carrier lifetime are used as benchmark parameters. The differences in the fabrication processes plasma etching, chemical etching, or laser processing are discussed and compared with numerical models. Guidelines to optimize the relevant physical parameters, such as the correlation length, optimal height of the nanostructures, and the surface defect densities for optoelectronic applications are given.

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Section: Analysis Of the Origin Of Recombination-active Surface Defecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black Silicon Photovoltaics

Otto

Algasinger

Branz

et al. 2014

Advanced Optical Materials

185

117

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Please note that a solar cell from macroporous Si with an effective thickness of (28 ± 2) µm already achieved a short‐circuit current density of 37.1 mA cm –2 18 which is about 90% of the ideal Lambertian value.…”

Section: Optical Characterisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, the light trapping of thin free standing and fully macroporous Si layers is largely unexplored. Such layers are an absorber material for future solar cells 3–5. This paper investigates the light trapping performance of free standing macroporous crystalline Si layers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lambertian light trapping in thin crystalline macroporous Si layers

Brendel

2014

Physica Rapid Research Ltrs

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Lambertian light trapping is a benchmark for efficient light trapping. In this Letter we experimentally quantify the degree of Lambertian light trapping in a macroporous silicon layer. The optical absorption of the effective (26.7 ± 5.5) µm thick sample with randomly arranged pores yields a photogeneration corresponding to a maximum current density of (40.8 ± 0.4) mA cm–2 and thus achieves a fraction of 0.985 ± 0.012 of the current density expected from a Lambertian light trapping scheme. The measured spectrum of the escape reflectance is well described with an analytic model assuming a complete randomization of the directions of light propagation. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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“…Gas and biological sensors are developed on the basis of porous silicon with CMOS-compatible manufacturing [12,13]. Macroporous silicon is used as a solar cell [14,15]. The effective lifetime of light-generated carriers in macroporous thin-film Si absorbers decreases owing to recombination at large areas of pore surface [16,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%