“Radial junction silicon wire array solar cells fabricated by gold-catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid growth“, C. E. Kendrick, H. P. Yoon, Y. A. Yuwen, G. D. Barber, H. Shen, T. E. Mallouk, E. C. Dickey, T. S. Mayer, and J. M. Redwing, Applied Physics Letters 97, 143108, 2010.
1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
2. Department of Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
3. Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
ABSTRACT. The fabrication of radial junction silicon Si solar cells using Si wire arrays grown by Au-catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid growth on patterned Si substrates was demonstrated. An important step in the fabrication process is the repeated thermal oxidation and oxide etching of the Si wire arrays. The oxidation cleaning process removes residual catalyst material from the wire tips and exposes additional Au embedded in the material. Using this cleaning process and junction formation through POCl3 thermal diffusion, rectifying p-n junctions were obtained that exhibited an efficiency of 2.3% and open circuit voltages up to 0.5 V under Air Mass 1.5G illumination.