Plasma-Free Dry-Chemical Texturing Process for High-Efficiency Multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cells

In this paper, we study the influence of modifying the geometry of nanotexture on its electrical properties. Nanotexture is formed by an industrially feasible dry-chemical etching process performed entirely in atmospheric pressure conditions. A surface modification process is developed that allows low surface recombination velocities (Seff,min  10 cm/s) on nanotextured surfaces. By simultaneously improving the surface passivation and the emitter diffusion processes, we achieve an equivalent passivation level (VOC,impl  670 mV) for nanotextured surfaces to that of reference textured surfaces after applying either PECVD or ALD based deposition techniques.