Novel method for fabricating high efficiency 10 μm thick c-Si solar cells

The most straightforward route to reducing the cost of c-Si photovoltaics is to make cells thinner. However, as cell thickness is reduced, light absorption is compromised. This necessitates the use of light trapping mechanisms to mitigate reduction in absorption. In this paper, we present a novel method to fabricate a high efficiency solar cell on a 10 μm thick silicon membrane. The method involves in-house fabrication of 10 μm thick membranes and integration of optically efficacious inverted pyramid texture with feature size and pitch on the order of the solar wavelength via a resist-free laser-writing method.