Porous Silicon: From Formation to Applications: Optoelectronics, Microelectronics, and Energy Technology Applications, Volume Three

Chapter 10

Porous Si and Si Nanostructures in Photovoltaics

Valeriy A. Skryshevsky and Tetyana Nychyporuk

10.1 Introduction

Nowadays, photovoltaics (PV) is growing rapidly, a total global installed capacity achieved of 139 GW at the end of 2013 (and 38 GW was installed for the last year). PV now covers 3% of the electricity demand and 6% of the peak electricity demand in Europe (EPIA 2014). Monocrystalline, multicrystalline, and thin film Si cells and modules actually draw up more than 88% from the total PV production (Aulich et al. 2010). However, the PV electricity still remains more expensive compared with traditional nuclear or thermal power engineering. That is why now the main efforts of solar power engineering are directed to improve ...