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Wafer-Scale Synthesis and Optical Characterization of InP Nanowire Arrays for Solar Cells.

ABSTRACT: Nanowire solar cells have the potential to reach the same efficiencies as the world-record III-V solar cells while using a fraction of the material. For solar energy harvesting, large-area nanowire solar cells have to be processed. In this work, we demonstrate the synthesis of epitaxial InP nanowire arrays on a 2 inch wafer. We define five array areas with different nanowire diameters on the same wafer. We use a photoluminescence mapper to characterize the sample optically and compare it to a homogeneously exposed reference wafer. Both steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence maps are used to study the material's quality. From a mapping of reflectance spectra, we simultaneously extract the diameter and length of the nanowires over the full wafer. The extracted knowledge of large-scale nanowire synthesis will be crucial for the upscaling of nanowire-based solar cells, and the demonstrated wafer-scale characterization methods will be central for quality control during manufacturing.

SUBMITTER: Hrachowina L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8431724 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The combination of metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) with colloidal lithography has emerged as a simple and cost-effective approach to nanostructure silicon. It is especially efficient at synthesizing Si micro- and nanowire arrays using a catalytic metal mesh, which sinks into the silicon substrate during the etching process. The approach provides a precise control over the array geometry, without requiring expensive nanopatterning techniques. Although MACE is a high-throughput solution-based approach, achieving large-scale homogeneity can be challenging because of the instability of the metal catalyst when the experimental parameters are not set appropriately. Such instabilities can lead to metal film fracture, significantly damaging the substrate and thus compromising the nanowire array quality. Here, we report on the critical parameters that influence the stability of the metal catalyst layer for achieving large-scale homogeneous MACE: etchant composition, metal film thickness, adhesion layer thickness, nanowire diameter and pitch, metal film coverage, Si/Au/etchant interface length, and crystalline quality of the colloidal template (grain size and defects). Our results investigate the origin of the catalyst film fracture and reveal that MACE experiments should be optimized for each Si wire array geometry by keeping the etch rate below a certain threshold. We show that the Si/Au/etchant interface length also affects the etch rate and should thus be considered when optimizing the MACE experimental parameters. Finally, our results demonstrate that colloidal templates with small grain sizes (i.e., <100 μm2) can yield significant problems during the pattern transfer because of a high density of defects at the grain boundaries that negatively affects the metal film stability. As such, this work provides guidelines for the large-scale synthesis of Si micro- and nanowire arrays via MACE, relevant for both new and experienced researchers working with MACE.

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Wafer-Scale Synthesis and Optical Characterization of InP Nanowire Arrays for Solar Cells.

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