ABSTRACT : We report recent achievements in adapting industrially used solar cell processes on nanotextured surfaces. Nanostructures were etched into c-Si surfaces by dry exothermic plasma-less reaction of F species with Si in atmospheric pressure conditions and then modified using a short post-etching process. Nanotextured multicrystalline wafers are used to prepare Al-BSF solar cells using industrially feasible solar cell proc- essing steps. In comparison to the reference acidic textured solar cells, the nanostructured cells showed gain in short circuit current (J_sc) of up to 0.8 mA/cm² and absolute gain in conversion efficiency of up to 0.3%. The best nanotextured solar cell was independently certified to reach the conversion efficiency of 18.0%. (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Authors:

1. Bishal Kafle^1,*,
2. Abdul Mannan¹,
3. Timo Freund¹,
4. Laurent Clochard²,
5. Edward Duffy²,
6. Marc Hofmann¹,
7. Jochen Rentsch¹ and
8. Ralf Preu