INTERNAL LIGHT TRAPPING METHOD AND STRUCTURE USING POROUS MONOCRYSTALLINE SILICON FILMS FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC APPLICATIONS

摘要

A thin photovoltaic device for solar cell applications. As used herein, the term 'thin' generally means less than about 20 microns of silicon crystal material, but can also be other dimensions. The term thin should not be limited and should be construed broadly and consistently as one of ordinary skill in the art. In a specify embodiment, the device has a support substrate having a surface region. The device has a thickness of photovoltaic material overlying the surface region of support substrate and having a predefined surface texture to facilitate trapping of one or more incident photons using at least a refraction process to cause the one or more photons to traverse a longer optical path within an inner region of the thickness of material according to a specific embodiment.