Patent ID: 8211735

Claim:
A method for fabricating a solar cell, comprising the steps of: providing a doped substrate; depositing a monolayer of spheres onto the substrate, the spheres comprising nanospheres, microspheres or a combination thereof; trimming the spheres to introduce space between individual spheres in the monolayer; using the trimmed spheres as a mask to pattern wires in the substrate, the wires comprising nanowires, microwires or a combination thereof; forming a doped emitter layer on the patterned wires and on the substrate, such that the doped emitter layer is in contact with the patterned wires and the substrate, wherein the emitter layer is formed by drive-in diffusion using an anneal to diffuse an n-type or p-type dopant into the wires from a dopant source selected from the group consisting of a spin-on-glass dopant source and a gas phase dopant precursor, and wherein a portion of each of the wires is present under the emitter layer after the drive-in diffusion has been performed; depositing a top contact electrode over the emitter layer; and depositing a bottom contact electrode on a side of the substrate opposite the wires.