[01] R. Benabderrahmane Zaghouani, Photovoltaic Laboratory, Research and Technology Centre of Energy, BorjCedria Science and Technology Park, Hammam-Lif, Tunisia. [02] S. Aouida, Photovoltaic Laboratory, Research and Technology Centre of Energy, BorjCedria Science and Technology Park, Hammam-Lif, Tunisia. [03] N. Bachtouli, Photovoltaic Laboratory, Research and Technology Centre of Energy, BorjCedria Science and Technology Park, Hammam-Lif, Tunisia. [04] B. Bessais, Photovoltaic Laboratory, Research and Technology Centre of Energy, BorjCedria Science and Technology Park, Hammam-Lif, Tunisia.

Thiswork focuses on optical characterization of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) used for photovoltaic applications. We report on the elaboration of silicon nanowires by Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (MACE) technique using silver (Ag) as metal catalyst. The obtained resultsshow that the SiNWsoptical properties are sensitive to their elaboration conditions specially the cleaning protocol. The reflectivity was found to be dependent on wavelength and increased from ultra-violet to red wavelength for all tested samples. The comparison between samples with different cleaning protocol shows that, in the UV spectral region, SiNWsmore contaminated with Ag nanoparticles present a pronounced decrease of the reflectivity. This optical behavior was attributed to metallic nanoparticles persisting in the silicon nanowires structures presenting surface plasmon resonance energy in a vicinity of UV spectral region.

SiNWs, MACE, Reflectivity, Silver Nanoparticles, Surface Plasmon Resonance

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