Abstract

Silicon nanostructures including silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are attracting intense interest as promising building blocks of next-generation, low-cost, high-performance Si-based photovoltaic devices since their unique geometries allow broadband optical absorption and high charge carrier collection efficiency even using less and lower quality Si. Recently, MCEE (i.e. metal-catalyzed electroless etching) approach featuring highly site-selective etching of silicon has been widely adopted to prepare silicon nanostructures due to its extreme ease and scalability. SiNWs arrays prepared by MCEE can strongly suppress reflectance over a broad spectral and are widely investigated as solar cell absorber. In this talk, I will discuss the recent achievements on MCEE technique and MCEE nanostructured silicon PV devices, along with the major scientific and technological challenges to cost-effective PV devices.

© 2013 Optical Society of America