page_title: Solar cell
section_title: Surface texturing
hierarchical_section_title: Solar cell / Research in solar cells / Surface texturing
caption_attribution_description: English: Solar Impulse HB-SIA landing at Brussels Airport Deutsch: Solar Impulse HB-SIA landet am Flughafen Brüssel
context_page_description: A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device whose electrical characteristics, such as current, voltage, or resistance, vary when exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electical building blocks of photovoltaic modules, known colloquially as solar panels. The common single junction silicon solar cell can produce a maximum open-circuit voltage of approximately 0.5 to 0.6 volts.
  Solar cells are described as being photovoltaic, irrespective of whether the source is sunlight or an artificial light. In addition to producing energy, they can be used as a photodetector, detecting light or other electromagnetic radiation near the visible range, or measuring light intensity.
  The operation of a photovoltaic cell requires three basic attributes:
  The absorption of light, generating either electron-hole pairs or excitons.
  The separation of charge carriers of opposite types.
  The separate extraction of those carriers to an external circuit.
context_section_description: For the past years, researchers have been trying to reduce the price of solar cells while maximizing efficiency. Thin-film solar cell is a cost-effective second generation solar cell with much reduced thickness at the expense of light absorption efficiency. Efforts to maximize light absorption efficiency with reduced thickness have been made. Surface texturing is one of techniques used to reduce optical losses to maximize light absorbed. Currently, surface texturing techniques on silicon photovoltaics are drawing much attention. Surface texturing could be done in multiple ways. Etching single crystalline silicon substrate can produce randomly distributed square based pyramids on the surface using anisotropic etchants. Recent studies show that c-Si wafers could be etched down to form nano-scale inverted pyramids. Multicrystalline silicon solar cells, due to poorer crystallographic quality, are less effective than single crystal solar cells, but mc-Si solar cells are still being used widely due to less manufacturing difficulties. It is reported that multicrystalline solar cells can be surface-textured to yield solar energy conversion efficiency comparable to that of monocrystalline silicon cells, through isotropic etching or photolithography techniques. Incident light rays onto a textured surface do not reflect back out to the air as opposed to rays onto a flat surface. Rather some light rays are bounced back onto the other surface again due to the geometry of the surface. This process significantly improves light to electricity conversion efficiency, due to increased light absorption. This texture effect as well as the interaction with other interfaces in the PV module is a challenging optical simulation task. A particularly efficient method for modeling and optimization is the OPTOS formalism. In 2012, researchers at MIT reported that c-Si films textured with nanoscale inverted pyramids could achieve light absorption comparable to 30 times thicker planar c-Si. In combination with anti-reflective coating, surface texturing technique can effectively trap light rays within a thin film silicon solar cell. Consequently, required thickness for solar cells decreases with the increased absorption of light rays.
caption: Solar Impulse aircraft are Swiss-designed single-seat monoplanes powered entirely from photovoltaic cells
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