Performance enhancement of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells with low cost nanodent plasmonic substrates

Abstract

Performance of thin film photovoltaics largely relies on photon absorption capability. Here, we introduce a novel substrate with patterned aluminum nanodent arrays with unique light management capability. Hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film solar cells have been fabricated on the nano-texturized substrate for optical property study and photovoltaic performance evaluation. Our measurements have shown significant enhancement on broadband light absorption using these patterned substrates via both geometrical light trapping and plasmonic coupling. Particularly, the enhancement factor reaches as high as 5-30 times at wavelength near the band edge. Numerical simulations confirm the measurements and uncover the mechanisms of the enhancement. More importantly, photovoltaic measurements on nanodent solar cells present improvements of over 31% and 27% in short circuit current and energy conversion efficiency respectively compared with planar solar cells. Therefore, the novel patterned substrates are promising candidates for low cost and high performance thin film solar cells. Broader contextAmong various alternative energy sources, solar power is of great advantage over other candidates due to its abundance and environmental friendliness. Current solar cells still cannot satisfy people's expectation on performance and cost. Aiming at promoting the ability of harvesting solar power as well as reducing the manufacturing cost, a novel plasmonic substrate was developed using a convenient anodization method for thin lm amorphous silicon solar cells, which convert solar power into electricity within a very thin absorbing layer. According to experimental and nite-difference time-domain simulations, the devices exhibit impressive light trapping capability, due to the coupling of waveguide modes and surface plasmon resonances with the aid of nanoscale patterns. The optimized device conguration delivered 5-30 times absorption enhancement near the band edge. The optical absorption and propagation were systematically investigated in view of photonic guided modes and surface plasmon resonances as well as their coupling effects. In comparison to the device on planar substrates, the plasmonic solar cells achieved signicantly increased short circuit current (31%) with a promising energy conversion efficiency up to 7.11%.

Liquid‐Tin‐Assisted Molten Salt Electrodeposition of Photoresponsive n‐Type Silicon Films

“…[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Currently, silicon thin films are mostly prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, [10][11][12] in which a gaseous mixture of silane (SiH 4 ) and hydrogen deposit on glass, polymer, or metal a layer of amorphous or microcrystalline silicon measuring a few micrometers or less in thickness. Solid-or liquid-phase crystallization of amorphous silicon thin films by annealing or electron beam melting has been employed to obtain polycrystalline silicon thin films.…”

Nanophotonics silicon solar cells: status and future challenges

“…The coupling to the photonic modes is preferred as they do not suffer from significant loss in the metal. It has been demonstrated that a relatively high absorption enhancement can be achieved by incorporating nanostructured plasmonic back reflector into solar cells [19,49,[57][58][59][60]. The most commonly used nanostructures for plasmonic back reflectors for a-Si thin film solar cells are the nanocone [60] or nanodome [59] structures, nanocylinder-induced conformal structures [19,49,61], and nanovoid structures [57,58] as shown in Figure 2.…”

Light Management with Nanostructures for Optoelectronic Devices

“…In this regard, Huang et al reported aSi:H thin film solar cells fabricated on flexible aluminum foil with random ordered nanodents, which were fabricated by large-scale aluminum anodization. 110 Such nanodent substrates could largely improve broad-band optical absorption of the solar cells especially near the band edge by both geometrical light scattering and plasmonic light trapping, resulting in over 31 and 27% improvement on J sc and PCE, respectively, as compared with the planar counterpart. Displayed in Figure 5c is the SEM image of a nanodent solar cell with a 330 nm thick aSi:H layer, indicating that the nanodent pattern on the substrate can be replicated on the solar cell after multiple thin-film depositions.…”