Institute of Solar Energy, and Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China.
Nanotechnology. 2018 Jan 5;29(1):015403. doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/aa9a96. Epub 2017 Dec 4.
Nanoscale inverted pyramid structures (NIPs) have always been regarded as one of the paramount light management schemes to achieve extraordinary performance in various devices, especially in solar cells, due to their outstanding antireflection ability with relative lower surface enhancement ratio. However, current approaches to fabricating NIPs are complicated and not cost-effective for massive cell production in the photovoltaic industry. Here, controllable NIPs are fabricated on crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers by Ag-catalyzed chemical etching and alkaline modification, which is a preferable all-solution-processed method. Through applying the NIPs to c-Si solar cells and optimizing the cell design, we have successfully achieved highly efficient textured solar cells with NIPs of a champion efficiency of 20.5%. Significantly, these NIPs are further demonstrated to possess a quasi-omnidirectional property over broad sunlight incident angles of approximately 0°-60°. Moreover, NIPs are theoretically revealed to offer light trapping advantages for ultrathin c-Si solar cells. Hence, NIPs formed by a controllable method exhibit great potential to be used in the future photovoltaic industry as surface texture.
纳米倒金字塔结构（NIPs）一直被认为是实现各种器件卓越性能的最重要的光管理方案之一，尤其是在太阳能电池中，因为它们具有出色的抗反射能力和相对较低的表面增强比。然而，目前制造 NIPs 的方法比较复杂，对于光伏产业中大规模电池生产来说并不具有成本效益。在这里，通过 Ag 催化化学蚀刻和碱性改性在晶体硅（c-Si）晶片上制造可控的 NIPs，这是一种更优的全溶液处理方法。通过将 NIPs 应用于 c-Si 太阳能电池并优化电池设计，我们成功地实现了高效的纹理化太阳能电池，其 NIPs 的冠军效率达到了 20.5%。值得注意的是，这些 NIPs 在约 0°-60°的宽太阳光入射角下表现出准各向同性的特性。此外，NIPs 从理论上揭示了它们在超轻薄 c-Si 太阳能电池中具有的光捕获优势。因此，通过可控方法形成的 NIPs 具有很大的潜力在未来的光伏产业中作为表面纹理使用。
