Sunlight-thin nanophotonic monocrystalline silicon solar cells

Introducing nanophotonics into photovoltaics sets the path for scaling down the surface texture of crystalline-silicon solar cells from themicroto the nanoscale, allowing to further boost the photon absorptionwhile reducing siliconmaterial loss. However, keeping excellent electrical performance has proven to be very challenging, as the absorber is damaged by the nanotexturing and the sensitivity to the surface recombination is dramatically increased.Herewe realize a light-wavelength-scale nanotexturedmonocrystalline silicon cell with the confirmed efficiency of 8.6% and an effective thickness of only 830 nm. For this we adopt a self-assembled large-area and industry-compatible amorphous ordered nanopatterning, combinedwith an advanced surface passivation, earning strongly enhanced solar light absorptionwhile retaining efficient electron collection. This prompts the development of highly efficient flexible and semitransparent photovoltaics, based on the industrially maturemonocrystalline silicon technology.