Recent Progress of Black Silicon: From Fabrications to Applications

Since black silicon was discovered by coincidence, the special material was explored for many amazing material characteristics in optical, surface topography, and so on. Because of the material property, black silicon is applied in many spheres of a photodetector, photovoltaic cell, photo-electrocatalysis, antibacterial surfaces, and sensors. With the development of fabrication technology, black silicon has expanded in more and more applications and has become a research hotspot. Herein, this review systematically summarizes the fabricating method of black silicon, including nanosecond or femtosecond laser irradiation, metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE), reactive ion etching (RIE), wet chemical etching, electrochemical method, and plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) methods. In addition, this review focuses on the progress in multiple black silicon applications in the past 10 years. Finally, the prospect of black silicon fabricating and various applications are outlined.