[19p-P8-1~13] 9.2 Nanowires and Nanoparticles

▲ [19p-P8-4] Al-Catalyzed Si Nanowires on Thin Si Wafer for Photovoltaic Application

〇Wipakorn Jevasuwan¹, Junyi Chen¹, Thiyagu Subramani¹, Ken C. Pradel¹, Toshiaki Takei¹, Ryo Matsumura¹, Naoki Fukata¹ (1.NIMS)

Keywords:Nanowire, Al catalyst, Photovoltaic

Thin silicon (Si) solar cells have been a candidate to suppress the Si material consumption. However, the advantage has come with a trading-off in the solar cell efficiency. Light absorption loss in thin Si wafer is an important issue to be overcome in order to improve the conversion efficiency. Si nanowire (NW) structures are promising to increase the light trapping in thin Si wafer owing to their unique physical properties. From our previous report, we presented SiNW formed by vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth using aluminum (Al) catalyst to create single-crystalline SiNWs. The Al-catalyzed SiNW formation and their solar cell fabrication on bulk Si have been succeeded. In this study, thin Si wafers provided by chemical etching were used as Si substrates. The optimized conditions of Al-catalyzed SiNW formation from previous studies were applied. The SiNW solar cell fabrication on thin Si wafer was also demonstrated.