Abstract
LBIC maps: before and after PS treatment. [Display omitted]
•Stain etching-based PS nanostructures increase the effective lifetime.•The electronic quality of the silicon improved significantly leading to high photovoltaic quantum efficiency response.•The effective lifetime values and the photoluminescence intensity depends on the effects of hydrogen and oxygen passivation.•Conversion efficiency improved by about 5% after PS formation.
In the present work, the impact of stain etching-based Porous Silicon (PS) nanostructures on both the effective lifetime and photoluminescence were examined. Results showed that stain etching-based PS nanostructures increase the effective lifetime from 3μs (un-etched samples) to 48μs (following 8min etching time) at a minority carrier density (Δn) of 1015cm−3 and drastically decrease the silicon surface reflectivity from about 28% to approximately 7%. These results allowed to correlate between the rise of the effective lifetime values and the photoluminescence intensity; which in turn depends on the effects of hydrogen and oxygen passivation. Consequently, the electronic quality of the multi-crystalline silicon improved significantly leading to high photovoltaic quantum efficiency response. This low-cost stain etching-based PS nanostructures process could potentially be applied in the photovoltaic cell technology and applications.