Photoluminescence at the fundamental absorption edge of single-crystal silicon textured without masking

Abstract

The extraction efficiencies of edge luminescence from single-crystal silicon have been compared for three structures: textured without masking, untextured, and textured with masking by the technology of high-efficiency solar cells. The highest efficiency was obtained for the structure textured without masking. For this structure, the efficiency of power conversion at a wavelength of ~0.66 μm and power of 75 mW into edge PL power emerging from the semiconductor was η ≈ 0.8% under the nonradiative recombination conditions described by the exponential photoluminescence (PL) decay time constant of ~0.11 ms. The directivity diagrams of the edge PL were measured for the three structures under study.