Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
ACS Nano. 2011 Nov 22;5(11):9291-8. doi: 10.1021/nn203844z. Epub 2011 Oct 31.
Three-dimensional (3-D) nanostructures have been widely explored for efficient light trapping; however, many of the nanostructure fabrication processes reported have high cost and/or limited scalability. In this work, self-organized 3-D Al nanospike arrays were successfully fabricated on thin Al foils with controlled nanospike geometry such as height and pitch. Thereafter, photovoltaic materials of a-Si and CdTe thin films were conformally deposited on the nanospikes structures thus forming 3-D nanostructures with strong light absorption over a broad wavelength range and photon incident angle. Specifically, 100 nm-thick CdTe film on nanospikes showed 97% peak absorption, and up to 95% day-integrated sunlight absorption. These results indicate that self-organized 3-D Al nanospike arrays can serve as lightweight and low cost substrates for cost-effective thin film photovoltaics.
三维（3-D）纳米结构已被广泛探索用于高效光捕获；然而，许多报道的纳米结构制造工艺成本高且/或可扩展性有限。在这项工作中，成功地在薄铝箔上制造了具有受控纳米刺几何形状（如高度和间距）的自组织 3-D Al 纳米刺阵列。此后，a-Si 和 CdTe 薄膜的光伏材料被共形沉积在纳米刺结构上，从而形成在宽波长范围和光入射角下具有强光吸收的 3-D 纳米结构。具体来说，100nm 厚的 CdTe 薄膜在纳米刺上的峰值吸收率为 97%，全天集成太阳光吸收率高达 95%。这些结果表明，自组织 3-D Al 纳米刺阵列可以作为轻质和低成本的基板，用于经济高效的薄膜光伏。
