Optical and photovoltaic properties of silicon wire solar cells with controlled ZnO nanorods antireflection coating

We introduce a new type of silicon micro-wire (SiMW) solar cell with a conformal zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods anti-reflection coating (ARC) and discuss the optical and photovoltaic properties of the SiMW solar cells with controlled ZnO nanorods. The fabrication processes were composed of metal-assisted electroless etching combined with photolithography, spin-on-dopant diffusion, and hydrothermal synthesized ZnO nanorods growth. We found that the combination of Si wire geometry and ZnO ARC was able to maximize the light absorption and to minimize the light reflectance. Illuminated current–voltage (I–V) results show that the photovoltaic efficiency of SiMW solar cells with optimized ZnO ARC was enhanced more than 50% and the short-circuit current density was improved by over 43% compared to SiMW solar cells without ZnO ARC. This is mainly attributed to the reduced light reflectance and enhanced photon absorption. These hybrid structures are promising for making low-cost Si wire solar cells and making them applicable to photovoltaic devices with large areas.