MNTL Hilights report web Apr. 2016 | Page 13

ENHANCING SOLAR CELL PERFORMANCE One way to improve the light absorption of solar cells is to create anti-reflection material layers on the photovoltaic wafer. However, all the possible approaches—multilayer dielectric film, nanoparticle sludges, microtextures, and 3D silicon nanostructure arrays, to name a few—are costly and often times incompatible with industry standards. ECE Associate Professor Gang Logan Liu has developed a new nano-manufacturing technique called Simultaneous Plasma-Enhanced Reactive Ion Synthesis & Etching (SPERISE) that offers a better anti-reflection solution while possibly increasing the p-n junction surface area. SPERISE improv