Light Confinement-Induced Antireflection of ZnO Nanocones

Abstract

The antireflective features of aperiodic vertical aligned ZnO nanocones on Si wafer were studied both experimentally and theoretically through comparison with planar ZnO films on Si substrates and bare Si substrates. The measured diffuse reflectance spectra show that the nanocone-based texture reduces the light reflection in a broad spectral range, and is much more effective than the planar textures. The numerical simulations exhibit a good agreement with the experimental data and suggest that the light confinement inside nanocones by controlling the diameters can bring further improvement of light absorption into Si.