NanoPorous Silicon for Sensors and Solar Cells

E. Manea, C. Podaru, A. Popescu, E. Budianu, M. Purica, F. Babarada, and C. Parvulescu

Citation: AIP Conference Proceedings 899, 759 (2007); doi: 10.1063/1.2733500
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2733500
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/899?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AIP Publishing

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Nano-Porous Silicon for Sensors and Solar Cells
E. Manea*, C. Podaru*, A. Popescu*, E. Budianu*, M.Purica*, F. Babarada**,
C. Parvulescu**
*National Institute for Research and Development in Microtechnologies, Bucharest, 72996, Romania
** Faculty of Electronic and Telecommunication, "Politechnica" University of Bucharest, Romania
Abstract. We report an experimental study of porous silicon layers for sensors and silicon solar cells applications . The
layers of porous silicon were formed by electrochemical etching of the crystalline silicon wafers, using a mixture of
hydrofluoric acid and ethanol as electrolyte for PV applications and HF in DMF for sensor devices. The pores size varies
from a few nm to a few microns depending on the conditions of formation and the characteristics of the silicon wafer.
Keywords: porous silicon, anodic oxidation films, solar concentrators
PACS: 42.79Ek, 84.60.Jd, 82.45.Cc, 78.55.Mb
INTRODUCTION
Porous silicon (PS) is a material that has been applied
to different optoelectronic devices including sensors.
Applications of PS have emerged in many technical
fields, such as sensors as sensitive layer and in solar
cells, essentially, as antireflection coating, due to low
reflectance values and also due to potential passivation
properties of the PS layers.
EXPERIMENTAL
PS samples used in PV applications were prepared by
electrochemical etching using as starting material
crystalline p-Si wafers (100), 0.02 2cm resistivity,
phosphorus doped and HF:C
2
H
5
OH:H
2
0 as
electrolyte. The current density range, 5 to 18
mA/cm
2
, anodisation time, 600 s, illumination, a
500 W halogen lamp, T=300K.
To obtain sensitive layers it was used an electrolyte
such as: 4% HF in DMF.
RESULTS
Gravimetric measurements were used to determine the
average density of the analyzed porous layers (PSL).
Thickness dependence of PSL and pores geometry on
the parameters of etching process was established from
the SEM measurements. SEM images of the porosified
layers showed the homogeneity of pores on the silicon
surface and, their sizes of around 8 nm, Fig. 1. The
reflectance spectra of the PSL were recorded in the
wavelength range from 350 nm to 900 nm using a
double beam spectrophotometer, Fig. 2.
FIGURE 1. SEM image of porous silicon layer
It can see that the reflectance of the porous layer is
lower than reference sample (n
+
/p Si).
300 400 500 600 700
Wavel ength [ nm]
FIGURE 2. Spectral dependence of reflectance for porous
silicon samples (C1-C4) and reference (n
+
/p Si).
CONCLUSION
A low-cost electrochemical etching was used to form
the PSL for applications in the sensors field and in the
PV, in order to reduce the light power losses by
surface reflection. For this purpose, PSL with pores
dimensions in the range of an 8 nm to 2 urn
depending on the conditions of formation and the
characteristics of the silicon wafer have been obtained.
CP899, Sixth International Conference of the Balkan Physical Union, edited by S. A. Cetin and I. Hikmet
2007 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0404-5/07/$23.00
759
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