High performance light trapping textures for monocrystalline silicon solar cells

Two novel texture schemes for the front of a c-Si silicon wafer solar cell are presented. The “bipyramid” texture is of two inverted pyramids of similar sizes laid out in alternating order. The “patch” texture uses a checkerboard layout of blocks of parallel grooves, with the grooves of alternating blocks perpendicularly oriented to each other. We estimate that these textures, which almost fully trap light for the first six passes through the substrate, can deliver better optical performance than the standard inverted pyramid texture, especially in narrow-band applications.