Nanoparticle Scattering for Multijunction Solar Cells: The Tradeoff Between Absorption Enhancement and Transmission Loss

Abstract

Abstract-This paper contains a combined experimental and simulation study of the effect of Al and AlInP nanoparticles on the performance of multi-junction solar cells. In particular, we investigate oblique photon scattering by the nanoparticle arrays as a means of improving thinned subcells or those with low diffusion lengths, either inherently or due to radiation damage. Experimental results show the feasibility of integrating nanoparticle arrays into the ARCs of commercial InGaP/InGaAs/Ge solar cells, and computational results show that nanoparticle arrays can improve the internal quantum efficiency via optical path length enhancement. However, a design that improves the external quantum efficiency of a stateof-the-art cell has not been found, despite the large parameter space studied. We show a clear trade-off between oblique scattering and transmission loss, and present design principles and insights into how improvements can be made.

Improving Conductivity in Nano-Conduit Flows by Using Thermal Pulse-Induced Brownian Motion: A Spectral Impulse Intensity Approach

“…The amelioration of the shear-induced migration of particles in planar channel flows is demonstrated by the use of a DEM simulation framework that uses particle collisional dynamics in the presence of the fluid lubrication and viscous drag forces, which also allows for the implicit consideration of the surface roughness of particles through the D/(h + h 0 ) ratio. The simulation results presented in Figures 5 and 6 demonstrate convincingly that the particle-particle and particle-wall thermal and electrical conduction processes are controlled effectively, and could be enhanced to suit practical purposes such as in electrode charging in fuel cells (Canizares et al 2007) [28] and photovoltaic cells for solar energy storage (Mellor et al 2016) [29] by manipulating the Brownian motion of the sub-micron particles. Conversely, the Brownian motion could be arrested to a measure to reduce the particle/wall friction experienced in micro-fluidic flows such as in the targeted introduction of bio-pharmaceuticals in the bloodstream, see Pele et al (2015) [30].…”

Improving the radiation hardness of space solar cells via nanophotonic light trapping

“…However, this comes at an even greater loss in transmission into the solar cell, yielding an overall loss. This study is expanded on in a pending journal paper [8]. …”

Interstitial light-trapping design for multi-junction solar cells

“…In recent work, we investigated the use of Al nanoparticle arrays embedded in the antireflection coating (ARC) of a InGaP/Ga(In)As/Ge solar cell as a means of improving the photocurrent in a thinned Ga(In)As subcell [20]. The presence of the nanoparticle array was found to improve the carrier collection efficiency, but also reduce transmission into the solar cell (see also Ref.…”

“…The performance of the solar cell is investigated using electrooptical simulation method, which is described in Section 2, and that has been experimentally validated in Ref. [20]. In Section 3, the simulation method is used to predict the enhancement that can be achieved in the Ga(In)As subcell of a InGaP/Ga(In)As/Ge solar cell.…”