A new strategy to make the wires covering the semiconductor of a solar cell invisible to light could boost solar cell efficiency by 10%.
The metal wires that carry current away from a solar cell have the unfortunate side effect of blocking the light that can reach the solar cell’s semiconductor. Light that hits the metal wires reflects away and cannot be converted to electricity.
A one-step process can solve this problem, according to scientists at Stanford Univ. The researchers created a gold grid with nano-sized holes, attached it to a silicon wafer, and dipped the material in a solution of hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The resulting reaction pushed nanopillars of silicon up through the gold.
“As soon as the silicon nanopillars began to emerge, they started funneling light around the metal grid and into the silicon substrate underneath,” says Vijay Narasimhan, previously a graduate student at Stanford Univ. and now a materials researcher at the nanotechnology company Intermolecular. Comparing the nanopillar array to a colander in a kitchen sink, he says:...
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