Porous silicon and solar cells

Abstract

Today over 90 % of all photovoltaic solar cells produced worldwide are composed of the silicon (single crystal, multicrystalline, amorphous, etc.). Despite this, the relatively high cost of silicon solar cells remains the main obstacle for their even wider applications. Physical principles of working of photovoltaic solar cell and action of antireflecting coating have been briefly presented. This chapter reviews investigations carried out over the last 10-15 years concerning the use of porous silicon layers in silicon solar cells. Data on photovoltaic parameters of silicon solar cells with thin porous silicon layer as antireflecting coating and also reflectance data of PS layers have been summarized. Advantages of nanostructured PS use in silicon solar cells, concerning increase of the cell effective surface area, lowering of the reflectance, broadening of the effective band gap of near-surface region of cell, etc., which finally promote improved silicon cell efficiency and simplify the technology, have been presented.