Silicon composite ink for advanced photovoltaic generation prepared by low-cost technique

Abstract

This work describes the preparation process of crystalline silicon composite ink (Si ink) from waste silicon wafers as raw material through a grinding technique. Crystalline Si powders were homogeneously distributed in sol-gel solution via an ultrasonic shaker. The thin films of silicon dots bound with phosphorus silicate glass were produced from Si ink under drying at low-temperature by a low-cost technique as a screen printing. Micro-crystalline (mc) Si particle sizes and surface morphology of Si dots film were imaged by laser size analyzer and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. In this paper, these mc-Si dots films coating on quartz substrates were characterized by X-ray diffractometer and micro Raman spectroscopy techniques which are non-destructive optical tools to study micro- and nano-structural properties. XRD analysis revealed that ~80nm crystalline Si size in the films with relative intensity at (111) plane of 60-64% simultaneously exists into the films during the preparation at 100-400°C sintering condition.  Meanwhile, the obtained Raman spectroscopy results suggest that residue stress mainly effects to the Raman asymmetric peak strongly down shifted rather than dominated by (< 10 nm) small size effect.