Electro-epitaxial growth of thin film silicon

Epitaxial growth of silicon from a liquid-metal solution with growth driven by the passage of current through the solvent has been achieved. The actions of the current is not to produce a faradaic electrochemical reaction but to enhance mass transport to the seed for the solvated silicon atoms. Planar devices have been grown using a temperature step with electric current and using electric current alone. A 15 μm thick film was grown using 20 A cm² for 30 min with no step. Overgrowth on silicon dioxide produced continuous films close to 1 cm². Characterization of the electroepitaxy solar cells have shown open-circuit voltages of 529 mV and short-circuit current densities of 14 mA cm² with no antireflection coating