Investigations of the optical properties of Si surface with microwires for solar cell applications

Combined with the rough textures which are usually used for fabricating the planar solar cells, textured-microwire (MW) structures (there are MW textures on the tops of MWs) are fabricated. Both simulative and experimental investigations of the optical properties of Si surface with microwires are carried out and the results show that surfaces of textured-MW structures exhibit lower reflectance in the short wavelength range, but higher reflectance in the long wavelength range than the conventional textured surface. It is also shown, consequently, that the textured-MW structures could absorb more photons in the short wavelength range, which could help improve the performance of the solar cells. (paper)