Research on the surface passivation of nanostructure-textured crystalline silicon solar cell

Nanostructure-textured solar cell owns unique properties but has some shortages especially in its fabrication and passivation. In this paper, nanostructures for crystalline silicon solar cell have been synthesized by controllable method based on silver catalyzed chemical etching. In this way, only the front surface of cell is etched and rear surface is protected. It was found that cells textured via the new method obtained equally excellent optical while superior electrical properties compared with those textured via traditional HF/AgNO₃ etching. The V _OC and I _SC of the cell were improved by 6% and 11%, respectively. Then the cells were passivated via a bi-layer passivation (SiO₂ & SiN _x ), in contrast to traditional SiN _x passivation. It was also found that cells with new passivation exhibited improved V _OC and I _SC by 4% and 25%, respectively. The encouraging results can provide fundamental data for developing the nanostructure-textured crystalline silicon solar cell in following researches.