Silicon nanostructures by metal induced growth (MIG) for solar cell emitters

This recent work shows the capacity of the MIG process to grow novel Si nanostructures and wires in both vertical and lateral directions. In the standard MIG process, a nanocrystalline Si thin film with 100 nm scale continuous and columnar structures was formed. By changing the process parameters, we can produce two-dimensional arrays of single crystalline nanowires with 1 /spl mu/m length on top of the Si thin film. Also, we can manipulate the lateral growth of nanocrystalline Si by varying the thickness of the Ni pre-layer. MIG-Si forms a novel device with standard MIG-Si as a thin film solar cell and the nanowires as surface textures to generate photo-current and give antireflection.