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US 9,318,641 B2Granted
Nanowires formed by employing solder nanodots
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsKeith E. Fogel, Jeehwan Kim, Jae-Woong Nah, Devendra K. Sadana, Kuen-Ting Shiu
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Abstract
A photovoltaic device and method include depositing a metal film on a substrate layer. The metal film is annealed to form islands of the metal film on the substrate layer. The substrate layer is etched using the islands as an etch mask to form pillars in the substrate layer.
Claims9
A method of forming an etch mask, comprising:
- depositing a solder film comprising at least one of tin, lead and antimony on a substrate layer;
- and
- annealing an entirety of the solder film to form islands of microscale width being greater than 1 micron from the solder film, wherein the annealing includes controlling a density of the islands in accordance with a temperature and duration of the annealing, the annealing being performed at temperatures less than 200 degrees Celsius.
A method of forming an etch mask comprising:
- depositing a solder film comprising at least one of tin, lead and antimony on a substrate layer;
- depositing a layer of flux on the solder film;
- and
- forming islands of micro scale width greater than 1 micron from the metal film on the substrate layer by an anneal, wherein the anneal includes controlling a density of the islands in accordance with a temperature and duration of the anneal, the anneal being performed at temperatures less than 200 degrees Celsius.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.