Abstract :
Three potential techniques for texturing commercial multicrystalline silicon solar cells are compared on the basis of
reflectance measurements. Wet acidic texturing, which would be the least costly to implement, produces a modest
improvement in reflection before antireflection coating and encapsulation, whereas maskless reactive-ion etching texturing,
and especially masked reactive-ion etched pyramids’, generate a larger gain in absorption. After antireflection
coating and encapsulation however, the differences between the methods are reduced. Short-circuit current measurements
on wet acidic textured cells reveal that there is a significant additional current gain above that expected from the
reduced reflection. This is attributed to both light-trapping and oblique coupling of incident light into the cell, resulting
in generation closer to the junction.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
