Light absorption enhancement for ultra-thin Cu(In1−xGax)Se2 solar cells using closely packed 2-D SiO2 nanosphere arrays

Yin, Guanchao; Manley, Phillip; Schmid, Martina

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2016.04.012

Cited by 23 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Hence, the introduction of the SiO 2 layer changes the rear reflection but compared with the reference some light still exits the solar cell. Light trapping is then needed to take advantage of the rear increased optical reflection, in good agreement with other studies . From these simple measurements, it is hard to find a quantification on the increase of the J sc between the increase in the reflection and the passivation effect.…”

Section: Summary Of the Samples Produced In This Work As Well The Expsupporting

confidence: 68%

“…In this work, we expand the study of using photolithography to create a patterned insulator layer with etched features with 700 and 1400 nm which allow to increase the total passivation area while keeping the distance between the contacts the same order of magnitude as the carrier's diffusion length. Furthermore, according to recent studies indicating that SiO 2 is a promising passivation material, we choose to work with that dielectric material …”

Section: Summary Of the Samples Produced In This Work As Well The Expmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO₂ Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

et al. 2018

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Ultrathin Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells are a promising way to reduce costs and to increase the electrical performance of thin film solar cells. An optical lithography process that can produce sub‐micrometer contacts in a SiO2 passivation layer at the CIGS rear contact is developed in this work. Furthermore, an optimization of the patterning dimensions reveals constrains over the features sizes. High passivation areas of the rear contact are needed to passivate the CIGS interface so that high performing solar cells can be obtained. However, these dimensions should not be achieved by using long distances between the contacts as they lead to poor electrical performance due to poor carrier extraction. This study expands the choice of passivation materials already known for ultrathin solar cells and its fabrication techniques.

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Section: Summary Of the Samples Produced In This Work As Well The Expsupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Summary Of the Samples Produced In This Work As Well The Expmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO₂ Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

et al. 2018

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“…A similar result was found in the case of quantum‐well solar cell where silica and gold nanoparticles induced 17% and 1% increase in the conversion efficiency of the cell . Similarly, the use of closely packed silica subwavelength nanospheres was demonstrated as a promising approach to improve light trapping in different solar cells such as CIGS, and perovskite solar cells . These ordered particles are mainly obtained using self‐assembly fabrication routes.…”

Section: Light Trapping Schemessupporting

confidence: 67%

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Ghobadi

Özbay

2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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throughput and large-scale compatibility. The photoactive material is generally composed of single or multiple semiconductor layers responsible for harvesting solar energy. This harvested solar irradiation can be used to generate electricity using photovoltaic (PV) devices, or it can be converted to chemical energy in the form of hydrogen which is the case for photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC-WS). In both PV and PEC-WS applications, the ultimate goal is to establish an efficient photon capturing and electron collecting scheme to generate a huge number of photocarriers (including electron-hole pairs) with rational carrier dynamics (efficient charge generation, separation, and collection). This means that the device should be optically thick enough to generate high carrier's density and electrically thin enough to collect photogenerated carrier before they recombine. When light impinges a semiconductor surface, a part of the light is reflected back due to the mismatch between the air and the semiconductor layer refractive index. The rest will propagate within the bulk until it is fully absorbed by the semiconductor slab. The optical penetration depth (LPD) is defined as the depth at which the incident power falls to 1/e (≈37%) of its input value. This parameter differs from one semiconductor to another and it depends on the extinction coefficient (κ) of the In both photovoltaic (PV) and photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC-WS) solar conversion devices, the ultimate aim is to design highly efficient, low cost, and large-scale compatible cells. To achieve this goal, the main step is the efficient coupling of light into active layer. This can be obtained in bulkysemiconductor-based designs where the active layer thickness is larger than light penetration depth. However, most low-bandgap semiconductors have a carrier diffusion length much smaller than the light penetration depth. Thus, photogenerated electron-hole pairs will recombine within the semiconductor bulk. Therefore, an efficient design should fully harvest light in dimensions in the order of the carriers' diffusion length to maximize their collection probability. For this aim, in recent years, many studies based on metasurfaces and metamaterials were conducted to obtain broadband and near-unity light absorption in subwavelength ultrathin semiconductor thicknesses. This review summarizes these strategies in five main categories: light trapping based on i) strong interference in planar multilayer cavities, ii) metal nanounits, iii) dielectric units, iv) designed semiconductor units, and v) trapping scaffolds. The review highlights recent studies in which an ultrathin active layer has been coupled to the above-mentioned trapping schemes to maximize the cell optical performance.

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“…By contrast, low FF values, together with evidences of series resistance, are good indications of point contact structures which are not optimized. [24,[83][84][85][86][87][88] Such properties can contribute to the enhancement of the optical path length of mostly the weakly absorbed near infra-red (NIR) photons within the CIGS region, thus enabling higher EQE in the NIR range close to the CIGS bandgap (>700 nm), as seen in the optical results of Figure 4b,c. However, we note that there is a difference of 89 mV between both devices in V OC .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passivation of Interfaces in Thin Film Solar Cells: Understanding the Effects of a Nanostructured Rear Point Contact Layer

Salomé

Vermang

Ribeiro‐Andrade

et al. 2017

Adv Materials Inter

110

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Thin film solar cells based in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) are among the most efficient polycrystalline solar cells, surpassing CdTe and even polycrystalline silicon solar cells. For further developments, the CIGS technology has to start incorporating different solar cell architectures and strategies that allow for very low interface recombination. In this work, ultrathin 350 nm CIGS solar cells with a rear interface passivation strategy are studied and characterized. The rear passivation is achieved using an Al2O3 nanopatterned point structure. Using the cell results, photoluminescence measurements, and detailed optical simulations based on the experimental results, it is shown that by including the nanopatterned point contact structure, the interface defect concentration lowers, which ultimately leads to an increase of solar cell electrical performance mostly by increase of the open circuit voltage. Gains to the short circuit current are distributed between an increased rear optical reflection and also due to electrical effects. The approach of mixing several techniques allows us to make a discussion considering the different passivation gains, which has not been done in detail in previous works. A solar cell with a nanopatterned rear contact and a 350 nm thick CIGS absorber provides an average power conversion efficiency close to 10%.

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Light absorption enhancement for ultra-thin Cu(In1−xGax)Se2 solar cells using closely packed 2-D SiO2 nanosphere arrays

Abstract: shown that the 110-nm-diameter sphere array exhibits a better angular tolerance than a conventional planar anti-reflection layer, which shows the potential as a promising antireflection structure.

Cited by 23 publications

References 32 publications

Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO₂ Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO₂ Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Passivation of Interfaces in Thin Film Solar Cells: Understanding the Effects of a Nanostructured Rear Point Contact Layer

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Light absorption enhancement for ultra-thin Cu(In1−xGax)Se2 solar cells using closely packed 2-D SiO2 nanosphere arrays

Abstract: shown that the 110-nm-diameter sphere array exhibits a better angular tolerance than a conventional planar anti-reflection layer, which shows the potential as a promising antireflection structure.

Cited by 23 publications

References 32 publications

Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO2 Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO2 Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Passivation of Interfaces in Thin Film Solar Cells: Understanding the Effects of a Nanostructured Rear Point Contact Layer

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Product

Resources

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Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO₂ Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells

Optical Lithography Patterning of SiO₂ Layers for Interface Passivation of Thin Film Solar Cells