title: Realization of effective light trapping and omnidirectional antireflection in smooth surface silicon nanowire arrays.
abstract: We have successfully fabricated well-ordered silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays of smooth surface by using a low-cost and facile Ag-assisted chemical etching technique. We have experimentally found that the reflectance can be significantly suppressed (<1%) over a wide solar spectrum (300-1000 nm) in the as-grown samples. Also, based on our bundled model, we have used rigorous coupled-wave analysis to simulate the reflectance in SiNW arrays, and found that the calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data. From a further simulation study on the light absorption in SiNW arrays, we have obtained a photocurrent enhancement of up to 425% per unit volume of material as compared to crystalline Si, implying that effective light trapping can be realized in the as-grown samples. In addition, we have demonstrated experimentally and theoretically that the as-grown samples have an omnidirectional high-efficiency antireflection property.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Condensed Matter Spectroscopy and Opto-Electronic Physics, Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: W Q
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: J I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.forename: W Z
authors.initials: WZ
authors.lastname: Shen