Hybrid Dielectric-Metallic Back Reflector for Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

Mutitu, James G.; Shi, Shouyuan; Barnett, Allen; Prather, Dennis W.

doi:10.3390/en3121914

Cited by 18 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…For example, a distributed Bragg reflector, which is commonly used as a high quality mirror, supports a photonic band gap, which can be positioned at photon energies just below the electronic band gap of the PV cell 61 62 . In fact, the concept of incorporating a Bragg reflector in a PV module is not new and has been used in the past as a way to recycle photons in various PV cells 63 64 65 66 67 68 . Although it is impossible to completely eliminate metal, since electrical contacts are needed to extract charge carriers, a recent study has shown that it is ideal to minimize the contact area between the PV cell and the metal contacts to reduce recombination losses 69 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thin-film ‘Thermal Well’ Emitters and Absorbers for High-Efficiency Thermophotovoltaics

Tong

Hsu

Huang

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

133

117

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A new approach is introduced to significantly improve the performance of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems using low-dimensional thermal emitters and photovoltaic (PV) cells. By reducing the thickness of both the emitter and the PV cell, strong spectral selectivity in thermal emission and absorption can be achieved by confining photons in trapped waveguide modes inside the thin-films that act as thermal analogs to quantum wells. Simultaneously, photo-excited carriers travel shorter distances across the thin-films reducing bulk recombination losses resulting in a lower saturation current in the PV cell. We predict a TPV efficiency enhancement with near-field coupling between the thermal emitter and the PV cell up to 38.7% using a thin-film germanium (Ge) emitter at 1000 K and an ultra-thin gallium antimonide (GaSb) cell supported by perfect back reflectors separated by 100 nm. Even in the far-field limit, the efficiency is predicted to reach 31.5%, which is over an order of magnitude higher than the Shockley Queisser limit of 1.6% for a bulk GaSb cell and a blackbody emitter at 1000 K. The proposed design approach does not require nanoscale patterning of the emitter and PV cell surfaces, but instead offers a simple low-cost solution to improve the performance of thermophotovoltaic systems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thin-film ‘Thermal Well’ Emitters and Absorbers for High-Efficiency Thermophotovoltaics

Tong

Hsu

Huang

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

133

117

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“…We can observe that the only light we really need to trap is between 800 -1100 nm. To this end, we design a back reflector with a single period, similar to the one we presented in [9], that is optimized for this bandwidth. As shown in Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One that utilizes a single period distributed Bragg reflector stack, which when combined with a metal and phase matching layer, produces a high performance reflector [9]. In addition, we have developed a new deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography process that utilizes a commonplace off the shelf i-line (365 nm) photoresist, SU-8, for the production of sub-micron diffraction gratings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light trapping in thin silicon solar cells

Mutitu

Shi

Addya

et al. 2011

2011 37th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference

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In this paper we present the design, optimization and characterization of a light trapping architecture that is applied to a thin, 50 micron, silicon solar cell structure. We combine a number of novel photonic engineering device concepts to realize the structure, including a single period hybrid dielectric-metallic back surface reflector and a host of diffraction gratings. We present a novel deep ultraviolet lithography process used in the realization of these gratings and a simulated analysis of their light trapping performance in the solar cell structure.

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“…In order to reduce the parasitic absorption of the Al back contact layer , a 200 nm SiO 2 layer has been added between the silicon and Al interface as a back surface reflector (BSR), such that Al point contacts are used in this structure.…”

Section: Experimental Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current and efficiency improvement for a GaAsP/SiGe on Si tandem solar cell device achieved by light trapping techniques

Wang

Zhao

et al. 2016

Physica Rapid Research Ltrs

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A GaAsP/SiGe tandem solar cell on Si substrate has been further fabricated using light trapping techniques, such as texturing and adding a back surface reflector, and thinning the Si substrate. This is of importance to increase the Jsc of the Si0.18Ge0.82 bottom cell in this tandem system since bottom cell is current limiting. The Jsc of the bottom cell has been increased by relative 7.4%. This current improvement leads to a predicted efficiency of near 21% for this tandem device, with an absolute efficiency improvement of 0.3% over previous results without light trapping processes. The current of the bottom cell can be further improved by optimizing the bottom cell structure and texturing process, further thinning the Si substrate and increasing Ge concentration. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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Hybrid Dielectric-Metallic Back Reflector for Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

Cited by 18 publications

References 37 publications

Thin-film ‘Thermal Well’ Emitters and Absorbers for High-Efficiency Thermophotovoltaics

Thin-film ‘Thermal Well’ Emitters and Absorbers for High-Efficiency Thermophotovoltaics

Light trapping in thin silicon solar cells

Current and efficiency improvement for a GaAsP/SiGe on Si tandem solar cell device achieved by light trapping techniques

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