Optical Absorption Enhancement in Amorphous Silicon Films and Solar Cell Precursors Using the Aluminum-Induced Glass Texturing Method

Sahraei, Nasim; Venkataraj, Selvaraj; Premachandran, V.; Aberle, Armin G.

doi:10.1155/2014/842891

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The shunting problem is most severe for sample AIT-4, severely reducing its open-circuit voltage (V oc ). Shunting of thin-film solar cells made on microtextured glass surfaces is a known issue [34]; it usually requires a careful reoptimization of the thin-film deposition processes. Due to the low shunt resistance and the high series resistance, the measured 1-Sun short-circuit current J sc of the solar cell made on the AIT-4 superstrate is significantly smaller than the photocurrent collected by the p-i-n junction.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thin-film a-Si:H solar cells processed on aluminum-induced texture (AIT) glass superstrates: prediction of light absorption enhancement

et al. 2015

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Light scattering superstrates are important for thin-film a-Si:H solar cells. In this work, aluminum-induced texture (AIT) glass, covered with nonetched Al-doped ZnO (AZO), is investigated as an alternative to the commonly used planar glass with texture-etched AZO superstrate. Four different AIT glasses with different surface roughnesses and different lateral feature sizes are investigated for their effects on light trapping in a-Si:H solar cells. For comparison, two reference superstrates are investigated as well: planar glass covered with nonetched AZO and planar glass covered with texture-etched AZO. Single-junction a-Si:H solar cells are deposited onto each superstrate, and the scattering properties (haze and angular resolved scattering) as well as the solar cell characteristics (current-voltage and external quantum efficiency) are measured and compared. The results indicate that AIT glass superstrates with nonetched AZO provide similar, or even superior, light trapping than the standard reference superstrate, which is demonstrated by a higher short-circuit current Jsc and a higher external quantum efficiency. Using the trapped light fraction δ, a quantity based on the integrated light scattering at the AZO/a-Si:H interface, we show that Jsc linearly increases with δ in the scattering regime of the samples, regardless of the type of superstrate used.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thin-film a-Si:H solar cells processed on aluminum-induced texture (AIT) glass superstrates: prediction of light absorption enhancement

et al. 2015

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“…Yablonovitch's absorption for a 10-μm c-Si is shown as a target reference. enhance the light coupling into the film further, since features of this range are often regarded as optimum for this purpose [15], [22]. Techniques such as aluminum-induced texturing [15] and plasma texturing [23] can be adopted to produce smaller glass textures.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light Absorption Enhancement in Laser-Crystallized Silicon Thin Films on Textured Glass

Pakhuruddin

Huang

Dore

et al. 2016

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

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Liquid-phase crystallization of Si films on textured glass by line-focus diode laser produces a material with large highquality grains of several hundred micrometers in width and up to centimeters in length, similar to the films crystallized on planar glass. A combination of glass texturing, rear Si texturing, white paint rear reflector, and a front moth-eye antireflection foil on a 7-μm absorber results in significant broadband absorption enhancement in the Si film with potential short-circuit current densities in solar cells of 27.8 mA/cm 2 or 36.3% enhancement compared with a planar reference film without light-trapping features. Index Terms-Absorption enhancement, light-trapping (LT), liquid-phase crystallization (LPC), polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si).

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“…The large-area processing capabilities and optoelectronic properties of a-Si:H, with its direct band gap and high sensitivity to visible light, have enabled commercially successful image sensor [1][2][3] and photovoltaic [4][5][6][7][8][9] applications. These developments enable high-resolution digital x-ray medical imagers and low-cost solar energy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-dimensional radial-junction ZnO nanowire/a-Si:H core–shell infrared photodiodes

Iheanacho¹,

Tari²,

Wong³

2020

Nanotechnology

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Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H)-based infrared photodiodes were fabricated by coating a-Si:H thin-film p-i-n layers over hydrothermally-synthesized disordered zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire (NW) networks. Due to enhanced light scattering, the reversed biased three dimensional (3-D) radial-junction NW diodes showed an ∼10× increase in photocurrent under a broad spectrum (800–2000 nm) infrared (IR) illumination compared to planar devices. The diodes were optimized by using InGaZnO (IGZO) transparent top contacts that had 20% higher optical transmission in the IR compared to Al-doped ZnO electrodes. Reverse-bias dark current was minimized by optimizing the area of the NW sidewalls and the a-Si:H shell layer thickness. The former reduces the effects of carrier recombination along the NW core–shell interface and the latter minimizes the tunnelling current across the radial-junction device. An enhancement of ∼100× was achieved for these devices compared to non-optimized diodes.

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Optical Absorption Enhancement in Amorphous Silicon Films and Solar Cell Precursors Using the Aluminum-Induced Glass Texturing Method

Cited by 8 publications

References 13 publications

Thin-film a-Si:H solar cells processed on aluminum-induced texture (AIT) glass superstrates: prediction of light absorption enhancement

Thin-film a-Si:H solar cells processed on aluminum-induced texture (AIT) glass superstrates: prediction of light absorption enhancement

Light Absorption Enhancement in Laser-Crystallized Silicon Thin Films on Textured Glass

Three-dimensional radial-junction ZnO nanowire/a-Si:H core–shell infrared photodiodes

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