One-step Maskless Fabrication and Optical Characterization of Silicon Surfaces with Antireflective Properties and a White Color Appearance

We report a simple one-step maskless fabrication of inverted pyramids on silicon wafers by reactive ion etching. The fabricated surface structures exhibit excellent anti-reflective properties: The total reflectance of the nano inverted pyramids fabricated by our method can be as low as 12% without any anti-reflective layers, and down to only 0.33% with a silicon nitride coating.

The results from angle resolved scattering measurements indicate that the existence of triple reflections is responsible for the reduced reflectance. The surfaces with the nano inverted pyramids also exhibit a distinct milky white color.