Simulation and analysis of prismatic bioinspired compound lenses for solar cells

Chiadini, F.; Fiumara, V.; Scaglione, Antonio; Lakhtakia, Akhlesh

doi:10.1088/1748-3182/5/2/026002

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(27 reference statements)

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“…The use of a bioinspired nanostructure as a means to improve the light absorption of solar cells has been previously considered, both for single [35,36] and multi-junction solar cells [37][38][39][40][41]. The current paper examines an alternative application for the LTS; as a way to design thin junction solar cells with enhanced radiation hardness, with minimal sacrifice in efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light absorption enhancement and radiation hardening for triple junction solar cell through bioinspired nanostructures

et al. 2021

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Multi-junction solar cells constitute the main source of power for space applications. However, exposure of solar cells to the space radiation environment significantly degrades their performance across the mission lifetime. Here, we seek to improve the radiation hardness of the triple junction solar cell, GaInP/Ga(In)As/Ge, by decreasing the thickness of the more sensitive middle junction. Thin junctions facilitate the collection of minority carriers and show slower degradation due to defects. However, thinning the junction decreases the absorption, and consequently, the expected photocurrent. To compensate for this loss, we examined two bioinspired surface patterns that exhibit anti-reflective and light-trapping properties: (a) the moth-eye structure which enables vision in poorly illuminated environments and (b) the patterns of the hard cell of a unicellular photosynthetic micro-alga, the diatoms. We parametrize and optimize the biomimetic structures, aiming to maximize the absorbed light by the solar cell while achieving significant reduction in the middle junction thickness. The density of the radiation-induced defects is independent of the junction thickness, as we demonstrate using Monte Carlo simulations, allowing the direct comparison of different combinations of middle junction thicknesses and light trapping structures. We incorporate the radiation effects into the solar cell model as a decrease in minority carrier lifetime and an increase in surface recombination velocity, and we quantify the gain in efficiency for different combinations of junction thickness and the light-trapping structure at equal radiation damage. Solar cells with thin junctions compensated by the light-trapping structures offer a promising approach to improve solar cell radiation hardness and robustness, with up to 2% higher end-of-life efficiency than the commonly used configuration at high radiation exposure.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light absorption enhancement and radiation hardening for triple junction solar cell through bioinspired nanostructures

et al. 2021

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“…f) Schematics of the first‐stage prismatic bioinspired compound lens used in silicon solar cells. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2010, IOP Publishing Ltd. g) The external quantum efficiency spectra of the organic solar cells with various nanostructures.…”

Section: Applications Of Bioinspired Optical Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Harvesting light with wide incident angles is another strategy to enhance the solar cell efficiency. Inspired by the wide angular field of view of some dipterans, the prismatic textures on their eyes have been fabricated for the purpose of improving the light‐harvesting capability of silicon solar cells, as shown in Figure d . Moreover, a multiple‐stage structure was designed and fabricated, and the light‐coupling efficiency could be enhanced by as much as 20% and 24% with respect to that of a flat surface when the exposed face of a silicon solar cell was decorated with the bioinspired hillock texture and the pit texture with a first‐order stage, respectively …”

Section: Applications Of Bioinspired Optical Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Functional Materials Inspired by Biology

Shang

et al. 2015

Advanced Optical Materials

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To learn from nature for the rational design of optical devices, the chemical and physical aspects of textures of these natural organisms should be systematically unraveled. Then the basic mechanisms as to how these structural units interact with light must be understood in depth. Finally, whether these morphologies can be fabricated by templating methods, by the current top-down methods, or by selfassembly methods should be well assessed. Up to now, biotemplating methods that take advantage of the physicochemical interactions between organic skeletons and the target solid-state materials are broadly adopted, as they are both cost and time effective. Many natural organisms have been successfully used as biotemplates to fabricate artifi cial photonic materials, including butterfl y wings, [20][21][22][23] beetles, [ 24,25 ] plant leaves, [ 26,27 ] and diatoms. [ 28,29 ] The biotemplating method can not only maintain the morphology of the natural organism, but also mimic the optical functions of the biological species. In addition, a wide range of high-quality photonic nanostructures have been fabricated using top-down methods, such as direct laser writing, photoetching, soft-lithography, and electron beam lithography. [ 10,[30][31][32] Some self-assembly systems can also provide us with novel photonic templates for the fabrication of functional materials, such as the opal structure selfassembled by polymer or silica spheres, [ 33,34 ] and some cubic phases self-assembled in block copolymer systems. [35][36][37] Inspired by natural organisms, researchers have achieved great progress in developing photonic materials in recent years. Many natural species, including birds, [ 3,38,39 ] insects (especially Lepidoptera and beetles), [ 3,[40][41][42][43] plants, [ 44,45 ] and aquatic organisms, [ 29,46 ] have a striking appearance with vivid structural colors originating from elaborate photonic crystals (PCs). PCs are periodic photonic nanostructures at the visible light wavelength scale that can affect the propagation of light. Inspired by these vivid structural colors, optical materials with photonic microstructures and brilliant color have been fabricated with applications in areas covering the cosmetics industry, [ 47 ] textile industry, [ 48 ] printing, [ 49 ] displays, [ 16 ] and security labeling. [ 5 ] As we know, structural colors originate from the interaction of light with various elaborate photonic structures, and are mainly determined by three structural parameters: the refractive index ratio, the volume fraction, and the unit cell size. [ 24 ] For certain optical systems, the photonic structural parameters can be tuned by exerting external fi elds to which the compositions are responsive, such as pH, [ 22,50 ] electromagnetic fi elds, [ 23,51 ] thermal fi elds, [ 52,53 ] gases, [ 54,55 ] and so on. By quantifying the

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“…3 clearly demonstrate that the change in the transmission spectra of the NSSCS array is almost insignificant with respect to the angle of incident along θ and ϕ; this reveals that the accepted power is constant with changing the angle of incident. This property results in an increased coupling efficiency, which is desirable for solar cell applications [24]. The NSSCS array shows excellent transmittance, below −10 dB, for wavelength bands from 0.545 µm to 0.857 µm and from 444.5 nm to 480 nm.…”

Section: Nsscs Array As Fss Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fresnel Lenses Based on Nano Shell-Silver Coated Silica Array for Solar Cells Applications

Elwi¹,

Al‐Rizzo²

2011

PIER B

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Abstract-Fresnel lenses are low-cost optical elements used for focusing sunlight to solar panels to ensure operation under highflux density. However, the conventional Fresnel lens has a relatively high material usage and hence contributes to additional efficiency degradation. Moreover, traditional design of Fresnel lenses introduces additional prismatic facets, due to deviations in manufacturing, which reflect the light toward the back focal spot, leading to additional losses. In this paper, Fresnel lenses based on finite arrays of Nano Shell-Silver Coated Silica (NSSCS) are proposed to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks from infrared regime through the visible band to the ultraviolet region. To identify reflection losses, material losses of the NSSCS array and rejection bands due to the NSSCS array arrangement, three unique electromagnetic (EM) approaches are invoked: Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS) to determine reflection bands, Metamaterial (MTM) to specify material losses and Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) to locate the rejection band. The EM characteristics of the NSSCS array are evaluated for wavelengths ranging from 0.3 µm to 300 µm, using CST MicroWave Studio (CST MWS), which is based on the Finite Integration Technique (FIT). It is found that the NSSCS array exhibits excellent transmittance within two bands, one from 545 nm to 857 nm and the other from 444.5 nm to 480 nm, for angles ranging from 0 • to 180 • along the azimuth and elevation. The effective refractive index (n eff ) spectra showed that the NSSCS array does not provide a negative for its real (n eff ) part over the considered wavelength band. The imaginary part of (n eff ) value is found to be almost insignificant, between 0.857 µm to 1.714 µm and 316 nm to 414 nm and lossy elsewhere. In general, the NSSCS array shows no specific stop band over the considered frequency 264Elwi and Al-Rizzo region. Fresnel lenses based on a 9 × 9 NSSCS array configuration with planar, concave and convex profiles are presented in this paper. The beam width and power density of the emerged beams are evaluated at different wavelengths for different lens sizes. In general, it is found that the power density spectrum is largely dependent on the imagery part of n eff . Nevertheless, the beam width decreases by increasing the lens size, while it decays for wavelengths longer than 500 nm. The concave and convex profiles are introduced to further enhance beam width. The effects of increasing the lens size from 9 × 9 to 11 × 11 on the beam width are reported for the concave and convex profiles. It is found that the concave design provides almost a constant beam width at 666.7 nm, 461.5 nm and 316 nm with changing array size, while the convex design does not. Characteristics of the emerged EM beams, in terms of beam waist, depth of focus and phase retardation, are evaluated based on Gaussian optic formalisms for the 9 × 9 NSSCS array. It is found that the beam waist and the depth of focus for the flat profile vary from 334.03 nm to 387.90 nm and 105.16 nm to 285...

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Simulation and analysis of prismatic bioinspired compound lenses for solar cells

Cited by 21 publications

References 19 publications

Light absorption enhancement and radiation hardening for triple junction solar cell through bioinspired nanostructures

Light absorption enhancement and radiation hardening for triple junction solar cell through bioinspired nanostructures

Optical Functional Materials Inspired by Biology

Fresnel Lenses Based on Nano Shell-Silver Coated Silica Array for Solar Cells Applications

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