Experimental study of design parameters in silicon micropillar array solar cells produced by soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching

Jae Cheol Shin; Debashis Chanda; Winston Chern; Ki Jun Yu; John A. Rogers; Xiuling Li

doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2180894

Experimental study of design parameters in silicon micropillar array solar cells produced by soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching

Jae Cheol Shin, Debashis Chanda, Winston Chern, Ki Jun Yu, John A. Rogers, Xiuling Li

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

47 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Solar cells, consisting of core-shell p-n junction silicon micropillars on a thin membrane fabricated using soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching, are studied as a function of geometrical designs. Significant enhancement in absorption rate is found without much dependence on the pillar diameters in the range of 0.5-2 μm. However, the short-circuit current increases continuously with diameter, which is inversely proportional to the total surface area for a fixed diameter/pitch pillar array. This study provides unambiguous evidence that surface recombination is the dominant loss mechanism in nanowire- or micropillar-based solar cells.

Original language	English
Article number	6140534
Pages (from-to)	129-133
Number of pages	5
Journal	IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume	2
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2180894
Publication status	Published - 2012

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received November 5, 2001; revised December 3, 2011; accepted December 13, 2011. Date of publication January 27, 2012; date of current version March 16, 2012. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy Division of Materials Science under Award DEFG02-07ER46471, by the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and by the National Science Foundation under Award 0749028 (CMMI).

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Condensed Matter Physics
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Access to Document

10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2180894

Cite this

@article{0c80ab7d3f9c431e886e64101c2923bd,

title = "Experimental study of design parameters in silicon micropillar array solar cells produced by soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching",

abstract = "Solar cells, consisting of core-shell p-n junction silicon micropillars on a thin membrane fabricated using soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching, are studied as a function of geometrical designs. Significant enhancement in absorption rate is found without much dependence on the pillar diameters in the range of 0.5-2 μm. However, the short-circuit current increases continuously with diameter, which is inversely proportional to the total surface area for a fixed diameter/pitch pillar array. This study provides unambiguous evidence that surface recombination is the dominant loss mechanism in nanowire- or micropillar-based solar cells.",

author = "Shin, {Jae Cheol} and Debashis Chanda and Winston Chern and Yu, {Ki Jun} and Rogers, {John A.} and Xiuling Li",

note = "Funding Information: Manuscript received November 5, 2001; revised December 3, 2011; accepted December 13, 2011. Date of publication January 27, 2012; date of current version March 16, 2012. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy Division of Materials Science under Award DEFG02-07ER46471, by the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and by the National Science Foundation under Award 0749028 (CMMI).",

year = "2012",

doi = "10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2180894",

language = "English",

volume = "2",

pages = "129--133",

journal = "IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics",

issn = "2156-3381",

publisher = "IEEE Electron Devices Society",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Experimental study of design parameters in silicon micropillar array solar cells produced by soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching

AU - Shin, Jae Cheol

AU - Chanda, Debashis

AU - Chern, Winston

AU - Yu, Ki Jun

AU - Rogers, John A.

AU - Li, Xiuling

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received November 5, 2001; revised December 3, 2011; accepted December 13, 2011. Date of publication January 27, 2012; date of current version March 16, 2012. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy Division of Materials Science under Award DEFG02-07ER46471, by the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and by the National Science Foundation under Award 0749028 (CMMI).

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Solar cells, consisting of core-shell p-n junction silicon micropillars on a thin membrane fabricated using soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching, are studied as a function of geometrical designs. Significant enhancement in absorption rate is found without much dependence on the pillar diameters in the range of 0.5-2 μm. However, the short-circuit current increases continuously with diameter, which is inversely proportional to the total surface area for a fixed diameter/pitch pillar array. This study provides unambiguous evidence that surface recombination is the dominant loss mechanism in nanowire- or micropillar-based solar cells.

AB - Solar cells, consisting of core-shell p-n junction silicon micropillars on a thin membrane fabricated using soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching, are studied as a function of geometrical designs. Significant enhancement in absorption rate is found without much dependence on the pillar diameters in the range of 0.5-2 μm. However, the short-circuit current increases continuously with diameter, which is inversely proportional to the total surface area for a fixed diameter/pitch pillar array. This study provides unambiguous evidence that surface recombination is the dominant loss mechanism in nanowire- or micropillar-based solar cells.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84865169147&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84865169147&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2180894

DO - 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2180894

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84865169147

SN - 2156-3381

VL - 2

SP - 129

EP - 133

JO - IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

JF - IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

IS - 2

M1 - 6140534

ER -

Experimental study of design parameters in silicon micropillar array solar cells produced by soft lithography and metal-assisted chemical etching

Abstract

Bibliographical note

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this