Screen printed multicrystalline silicon solar cells with porous silicon antireflection coating

The successful application of chemically etched porous silicon (PS) as an antireflection coating (ARC) for multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) solar cell is reported. The evaluation of the Si surface after chemical etching by microscopical and optical characterization shows the great potential of PS in ARC application. For the first time the PS ARC was formed by simple chemical etching without any protection on the commercial mc-Si solar cells with screen printed contacts. The optimization of the etching parameters results in 12.3% efficiency of 10/spl times/10 cm/sup 2/ mc-Si solar cell with PS ARC.