Light trapping in thin-film silicon solar cells with submicron surface texture

Abstract

The influence of nano textured front contacts on the optical wave propagation within microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cell was investigated. Periodic triangular gratings were integrated in solar cells and the influence of the profile dimensions on the quantum efficiency and the short circuit current was studied. A Finite Difference Time Domain approach was used to rigorously solve the Maxwell's equations in two dimensions. By studying the influence of the period and height of the triangular profile, the design of the structures were optimized to achieve higher short circuit currents and quantum efficiencies. Enhancement of the short circuit current in the blue part of the spectrum is achieved for small triangular periods (P<200 nm), whereas the short circuit current in the red and infrared part of the spectrum is increased for triangular periods (P = 900nm) comparable to the optical wavelength. The influence of the surface texture on the solar cell performance will be discussed.

Angle insensitive enhancement of organic solar cells using metallic gratings

“…Several metal geometries (gratings, particles [6][7][8][9]) and their locations in the cell (front, middle or back) are under active investigation for different types of solar cells. Plasmonic grating structures [5,[10][11][12][13][14][15] form a particularly interesting class, as they involve the patterning of an available metallic electrode.…”

Optical Simulation of Light Management in CIGS Thin-Film Solar Cells Using Finite Element Method

“…Similar techniques have been used for the efficiency improvement in thin film silicon solar cells [14][15][16]. These simulations should give an insight in the range of the texturing features' sizes, thus reducing the need for costly experimental works, giving the experimental focus to the best-resulting configurations.…”

Improving solar cell efficiency with optically optimised TCO layers

“…The change can even be desirable, as the optical path length within the absorber increases for the scattered light [7,34]. It is often reported, that the increase in efficiency for a rough TCO/absorber interface is caused by multiple reflections similar to the case of large scale textured front surfaces or crystalline silicon textures [35]. For low haze TCOs the structure size is much smaller than the wavelength, hence geometrical optics can not be applied [11,36].…”