Silicon Nanostructures Produced by Modified MacEtch Method for Antireflective Si Surface

This work pertains to the method for modification of silicon (Si) wafer morphology by metal-assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) technique suitable for fabrication of antireflective Si surfaces. For this purpose, we made different Au catalyst patterns on the surface of Si substrate. This modification allowed to obtain the close-packed Au nanodrop (ND) pattern that generates the nanowires (NWs) and the well-separated Au NDs, which induce the nanopore (NP) formation. The antireflective properties of these structures in comparison with NWs produced by the conventional Ag-MacEtch method were analysed. The total surface reflectance of 1~7% for SiNWs and ~17% for SiNPs was observed over the entire Si-absorbing region. Moreover, SiNWs prepared by Au-MacEtch demonstrate better antireflective properties in contrast to those formed by conventional Ag-assisted chemical etching. So, the use of SiNWs produced by the modified Au-MacEtch method as the antireflective material is favored over those prepared by Ag-MacEtch due to their higher light absorption and lower reflectance. The possible reason of these findings is discussed.