15.7% Efficient 10‐μm‐Thick Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells Using Periodic Nanostructures

Branham, Matthew S.; Hsu, Wen-Jing; Yerci, Selçuk; Loomis, James; Boriskina, Svetlana V.; Hoard, Brittany R.; Han, Sang Eon; Chen, Gang

doi:10.1002/adma.201405511

Cited by 169 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…On this aspect, Si nanopyramids (SiNPs) have extremely attracted interests due to the fact that they have low surface enhancement, while excellent antireflection and light trapping effect are retained 24, 25, 26, 27. Therefore, SiNPs have been successfully demonstrated to bring benefits for solar cells, especially in ultrathin c‐Si solar cells 28, 29, 30. However, we also notice that the knowledge on the angle‐dependent optical performance of SiNPs is very limited and it is also unknown whether the design of SiNPs is superior to SiMPs on solar cells.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realization of Quasi‐Omnidirectional Solar Cells with Superior Electrical Performance by All‐Solution‐Processed Si Nanopyramids

et al. 2017

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Large‐scale (156 mm × 156 mm) quasi‐omnidirectional solar cells are successfully realized and featured by keeping high cell performance over broad incident angles (θ), via employing Si nanopyramids (SiNPs) as surface texture. SiNPs are produced by the proposed metal‐assisted alkaline etching method, which is an all‐solution‐processed method and highly simple together with cost‐effective. Interestingly, compared to the conventional Si micropyramids (SiMPs)‐textured solar cells, the SiNPs‐textured solar cells possess lower carrier recombination and thus superior electrical performances, showing notable distinctions from other Si nanostructures‐textured solar cells. Furthermore, SiNPs‐textured solar cells have very little drop of quantum efficiency with increasing θ, demonstrating the quasi‐omnidirectional characteristic. As an overall result, both the SiNPs‐textured homojunction and heterojunction solar cells possess higher daily electric energy production with a maximum relative enhancement approaching 2.5%, when compared to their SiMPs‐textured counterparts. The quasi‐omnidirectional solar cell opens a new opportunity for photovoltaics to produce more electric energy with a low cost.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realization of Quasi‐Omnidirectional Solar Cells with Superior Electrical Performance by All‐Solution‐Processed Si Nanopyramids

et al. 2017

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“…In order to get high efficiency, reducing recombination, especially surface recombination, is critical for ultrathin c-Si solar cells [11,12]. However, typical nanostructured c-Si solar cells suffer from nanostructured pn junction with poor junction quality and high surface damage due the fabrication process, which result in a low V oc , despite a relatively high short circuit current J sc [11][12][13][14]. Consequently, the efficiencies of ultrathin c-Si cells are low.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, due to the intrinsic optical properties of Si as an indirect bandgap material, light trapping using nanostructures is necessary for ultrathin c-Si solar cells to achieve competitive efficiencies [11][12][13][14]. In order to get high efficiency, reducing recombination, especially surface recombination, is critical for ultrathin c-Si solar cells [11,12]. However, typical nanostructured c-Si solar cells suffer from nanostructured pn junction with poor junction quality and high surface damage due the fabrication process, which result in a low V oc , despite a relatively high short circuit current J sc [11][12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanostructured Dielectric Layer for Ultrathin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Chen

Kang

Jia

et al. 2017

International Journal of Photoenergy

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Nanostructures have been widely used in solar cells due to their extraordinary photon management properties. However, due to poor pn junction quality and high surface recombination velocity, typical nanostructured solar cells are not efficient compared with the traditional commercial solar cells. Here, we demonstrate a new approach to design, simulate, and fabricate whole-wafer nanostructures on dielectric layer on thin c-Si for solar cell light trapping. The optical simulation results show that the periodic nanostructure arrays on dielectric materials could suppress the reflection loss over a wide spectral range. In addition, by applying the nanostructured dielectric layer on 40 μm thin c-Si, the reflection loss is suppressed to below 5% over a wide spectra and angular range. Moreover, a c-Si solar cell with 2.9 μm ultrathin absorber layer demonstrates 32% improvement in short circuit current and 44% relative improvement in energy conversion efficiency. Our results suggest that nanostructured dielectric layer has the potential to significantly improve solar cell performance and avoid typical problems of defects and surface recombination for nanostructured solar cells, thus providing a new pathway towards realizing high-efficiency and low-cost c-Si solar cells.

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“…They cover a large variety of architectures but mostly with high aspect-ratio nanostructures, such as nanowires or nanocolumns, that offer superior optical performance. The best energy-conversion efficiencies are however achieved with shallower tapered textures, shaped as periodic nanocones [9] or periodic inverted nanopyramids [13,14] that better preserve the electrical performances. Recent findings now indicate that disturbing the periodicity of these patterns could further improve their light trapping effect [16,17].…”

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confidence: 99%

Sunlight-thin nanophotonic monocrystalline silicon solar cells

et al. 2017

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Introducing nanophotonics into photovoltaics sets the path for scaling down the surface texture of crystalline-silicon solar cells from the micro- to the nanoscale, allowing to further boost the photon absorption while reducing silicon material loss. However, keeping excellent electrical performance has proven to be very challenging, as the absorber is damaged by the nanotexturing and the sensitivity to the surface recombination is dramatically increased. Here we realize a light-wavelength-scale nanotextured monocrystalline silicon cell with the confirmed efficiency of 8.6% and an effective thickness of only 830 nm. For this we adopt a self-assembled large-area and industry-compatible amorphous ordered nanopatterning, combined with an advanced surface passivation, earning strongly enhanced solar light absorption while retaining efficient electron collection. This prompts the development of highly efficient flexible and semitransparent photovoltaics, based on the industrially mature monocrystalline silicon technology.

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15.7% Efficient 10‐μm‐Thick Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells Using Periodic Nanostructures

Cited by 169 publications

References 35 publications

Realization of Quasi‐Omnidirectional Solar Cells with Superior Electrical Performance by All‐Solution‐Processed Si Nanopyramids

Realization of Quasi‐Omnidirectional Solar Cells with Superior Electrical Performance by All‐Solution‐Processed Si Nanopyramids

Nanostructured Dielectric Layer for Ultrathin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Sunlight-thin nanophotonic monocrystalline silicon solar cells

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