Performance Improvement of Graphene/Silicon Solar Cells via Inverted Pyramid Texturation Array

Graphene/silicon (Gr/Si) solar cells have aroused extensive research interest due to their simple structure and great potential for low-cost photovoltaic applications. Enhancing light absorption is one of the mainstream methods to improve the performance of Gr/Si solar cell. In this paper, a large scale inverted pyramid array (IPa) was prepared by a simple and cost-effective one-step copper assisted chemical etching method, followed by the surface of the silicon inverted pyramid structure smoothed with a concentrated KOH treatment. Gr/SiIPa solar cells with and without KOH smoothing were both prepared as a comparison. The results show that KOH treated SiIPa has a better Schottky junction contact between graphene and the SiIPa surface, thus silicon surface defects and carrier recombination of devices were reduced. Compared with Gr/Si solar cells, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of Gr/SiIPa device is improved by 42% with KOH smoothing procedure. Finally, the PCE of HNO 3 doping Gr/SiIPa devices reached 5.58%. This study provides guide value for improving the light trap capacity of Gr/Si solar cells and simple surface smoothing treatment for inverted pyramid texturing.