Improving the Blue Response and Efficiency of Multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cells by Surface Nanotexturing

Reducing surface reflectance by surface roughening is critical to improve the efficiency of all kinds of solar cells. In this letter, nanotexturing based on reactive ion etching (RIE) was adopted to increase the blue response and conversion efficiency of multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) solar cells. After antireflection film deposition, the reflectivity at 400 nm remarkably decreases from 27.76% for acid-textured wafer to 4.46% for RIE-textured wafer. The average conversion efficiency of industrial wafer-scale (15.6 cm $\times \,\, 15.6$ cm) mc-Si solar cells increased from 18.10% to 18.72%. This letter presents an effective strategy to improve the efficiency of industrial mc-Si solar cells.