Nano-textured superstrates for thin film silicon solar cells: Status and industrial challenges

Orhan, J.-B.; Monnard, R.; Vallat-Sauvain, E.; Fesquet, L.; Romang, D.; Multone, X.; Boucher, J.-F.; Steinhauser, J.; Dominé, D.; Cardoso, J.; Borrello, D.; Charitat, G.; Dehbozorgi, B.; Choong, G.; Charrière, Mathieu; Benagli, S.; Meier, J.; Bailat, J.; Escarré, Jordi; Blondiaux, Nicolas; Sakùrai, Jun; Lin, Jun; Matsunaga, Akio; Losio, Paolo A.

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2015.04.027

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The effort to lower costs has resulted in the development of many new PV technologies based on cheap materials and low‐cost processes, such as thin‐film silicon solar cells and dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSCs) . However, the power conversion efficiencies of these devices have not been high enough for commercialization .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost‐Performance Analysis of Perovskite Solar Modules

et al. 2016

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Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are promising candidates for the next generation of solar cells because they are easy to fabricate and have high power conversion efficiencies. However, there has been no detailed analysis of the cost of PSC modules. We selected two representative examples of PSCs and performed a cost analysis of their productions: one was a moderate‐efficiency module produced from cheap materials, and the other was a high‐efficiency module produced from expensive materials. The costs of both modules were found to be lower than those of other photovoltaic technologies. We used the calculated module costs to estimate the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of PSCs. The LCOE was calculated to be 3.5–4.9 US cents/kWh with an efficiency and lifetime of greater than 12% and 15 years respectively, below the cost of traditional energy sources.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost‐Performance Analysis of Perovskite Solar Modules

et al. 2016

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“…As a result, increased carrier recombination caused by reduced material quality is the primary issue, with carrier recombination increasing with increased areal density of nanostructures, thereby offsetting any enhancements in carrier generation via improved photon management. This reduced material quality is primarily due to the poor conformal coverage of the a-Si layer around the larger nanostructures [8]; such effects are more acute for microcrystalline Si solar cells (see, e.g., [9]). Note that our nanostructures have an added complication of being nonuniform in distribution and orientation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the recent developments in nanotechnology, a new approach called photon (light) management [2][3][4][5][6][7] in thin-film solar cells has been developed to further enhance the light absorption in thin-film solar cells; the ultimate goal is to enable even thinner films to be used while still providing higher conversion efficiency. Of the wide variety of approaches to perform photon management in thin-film solar cells, one particularly attractive approach is the use of nanostructured substrates with an array of nanostructures of high aspect ratio that have greater height from the substrate; such a nanostructured morphology manifests itself in the subsequently deposited thin-film solar cell, thereby allowing improved optical absorption [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The higher aspect ratio structures that can be produced are particularly advantageous for enhancing the light absorption in thin-film solar cells with very thin absorber layers, e.g., amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells deposited onto a nanostructured substrate comprised of an array of nanopillars (see e.g., [5]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade-off between Photon Management Efficacy and Material Quality in Thin-Film Solar Cells on Nanostructured Substrates of High Aspect Ratio Structures

2018

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Although texturing of the transparent electrode of thin-film solar cells has long been used to enhance light absorption via light trapping, such texturing has involved low aspect ratio features. With the recent development of nanotechnology, nanostructured substrates enable improved light trapping and enhanced optical absorption via resonances, a process known as photon management, in thin-film solar cells. Despite the progress made in the development of photon management in thin-film solar cells using nanostructures substrates, the structural integrity of the thin-film solar cells deposited onto such nanostructured substrates is rarely considered. Here, we report the observation of the reduction in the open circuit voltage of amorphous silicon solar cells deposited onto a nanostructured substrate with increasing areal number density of high aspect ratio structures. For a nanostructured substrate with the areal number density of such nanostructures increasing in correlation with the distance from one edge of the substrate, a correlation between the open circuit voltage reduction and the increase of the areal number density of high aspect ratio nanostructures of the front electrode of the small-size amorphous silicon solar cells deposited onto different regions of the substrate with graded nanostructure density indicates the effect of the surface morphology on the material quality, i.e., a trade-off between photon management efficacy and material quality. This observed trade-off highlights the importance of optimizing the morphology of the nanostructured substrate to ensure conformal deposition of the thin-film solar cell.

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“…Heterojunctions based on PS2 exhibit larger efficiency compared to those based on PS1 and PS3 (Tables 2 and 3). This can be tentatively attributed to the loss of performance due to the structural defects in the polycrystalline film [22,23]. Although it is true that the efficiency obtained by us is comparatively small for silicon solar cells, but the heterojunctions we obtained on the basis of a simple and cheap method, electrochemical deposition, broadens the prospects of these heterojunctions.…”

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confidence: 87%