Plasma-texturization for multicrystalline silicon solar cells

Multicrystalline Si (mc-Si) cells have not benefited from the cost-effective wet-chemical texturing processes that reduce front surface reflectance on single-crystal wafers. The authors developed a maskless plasma texturing technique for mc-Si cells using reactive ion etching (RIE) that results in much higher cell performance than that of standard untextured cells. Elimination of plasma damage has been achieved while reducing front reflectance to extremely low levels. Internal quantum efficiencies higher than those on planar and wet-textured cells have been obtained, boosting cell currents and efficiencies by up to 11% on monocrystalline Si and 2.5% on multicrystalline Si cells.