Silicon nanoparticles are a safe, inexpensive, and abundant alternative to other quantum dot technologies that contain heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, that are scarce and toxic.

Potential applications for silicon nanoparticles are wide and varied and include semiconductor production, integrated circuit underlays, nonvolatile memory devices, high refractive index nanocomposites, and a number of biomedical applications.

Silicon solar cell is a kind of solar cell, which is mainly based on a semiconductor material, and its working principle is to use a photoelectric material to absorb photoelectric energy and then undergo a photoelectric conversion reaction.

The improvement in solar cell performance is mainly due to the improvement in solar cell contact performance.

Silicon nanoparticles used in solar cell is providing a large surface area to boost the electrochemical reaction or molecular adsorption occurring at the solid–liquid or solid–gas interface, generating optical effects to improve optical absorption in solar cells, and  giving rise to high crystallinity and/or porous structure to facilitate the electron or ion transport and electrolyte diffusion, so as to ensure the electrochemical process occurs with high efficiency.