Optimization of back reflector for high efficiency hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon solar cells

Yue, Guozhen; Sivec, Laura; Owens, Jessica M.; Yan, Baojie; Yang, Jeffrey; Guha, S.

doi:10.1063/1.3279143

Cited by 117 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…An root mean square (RMS) value of 126 nm was obtained for our TCPC with a crater-like surface, as can be seen from the AFM images of Figure 7a. In traditional n-i-p thin-film silicon solar cells, textured Ag/AZO(100-150 nm) BRs were proven to be efficient light-trapping structures and produced the best cell performance by United Solar before [15,40]. It is noteworthy that highly textured Ag interfaces inevitably lead to not only plasmonic loss, but also other defect-induced loss in narrow angle valleys, thus to counteract the gain from enhanced scattering.…”

Section: Design and Fabricationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells: Design and Experiment

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:One of the foremost challenges in designing thin-film silicon solar cells (TFSC) is devising efficient light-trapping schemes due to the short optical path length imposed by the thin absorber thickness. The strategy relies on a combination of a high-performance back reflector and an optimized texture surface, which are commonly used to reflect and scatter light effectively within the absorption layer, respectively. In this paper, highly promising light-trapping structures based on a photonic crystal (PC) for TFSCs were investigated via simulation and experiment. Firstly, a highly-reflective one-dimensional photonic crystal (1D-PC) was designed and fabricated. Then, two types of 1D-PC-based back reflectors (BRs) were proposed: Flat 1D-PC with random-textured aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) or random-textured 1D-PC with AZO. These two newly-designed BRs demonstrated not only high reflectivity and sufficient conductivity, but also a strong light scattering property, which made them efficient candidates as the electrical contact and back reflector since the intrinsic losses due to the surface plasmon modes of the rough metal BRs can be avoided. Secondly, conical two-dimensional photonic crystal (2D-PC)-based BRs were investigated and optimized for amorphous a-SiGe:H solar cells. The maximal absorption value can be obtained with an aspect ratio of 1/2 and a period of 0.75 µm. To improve the full-spectral optical properties of solar cells, a periodically-modulated PC back reflector was proposed and experimentally demonstrated in the a-SiGe:H solar cell. This periodically-modulated PC back reflector, also called the quasi-crystal structure (QCS), consists of a large periodic conical PC and a randomly-textured Ag layer with a feature size of 500-1000 nm. The large periodic conical PC enables conformal growth of the layer, while the small feature size of Ag can further enhance the light scattering. In summary, a comprehensive study of the design, simulation and fabrication of 1D-PC-and 2D-PC-based back reflectors for TFSCs was carried out. Total absorption and device performance enhancement were achieved with the novel PC light-trapping systems because of their high reflectivity or high scattering property. Further research is necessary to illuminate the optimal structure design of PC-based back reflectors and high solar cell efficiency.

show abstract

Section: Design and Fabricationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells: Design and Experiment

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Using To date, light trapping geometries based on nanowires, nanocones, photonic crystals, nanoparticles, gratings, and random textures have been demonstrated [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,116,117,131,135,136]. While many researchers have demonstrated increased photocurrent due to scattering-mediated light trapping, the role of spatial correlations and surface topography of random or periodic arrange-ments of the scattering nanostructures has remained unclear.…”

Section: Pitch and Diametermentioning

confidence: 99%

Light Trapping in Plasmonic Solar Cells

Ferry

2011

Frontiers in Optics 2011/Laser Science XXVII

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The textured BR consists of textured Ag layer and a thin ZnO (110-140 nm) layer, which is optimized for both good light trapping and for the growth of high-quality lc-Si:H materials on top. 3,21,22 The EQE spectra of the two solar cells are compared in Fig. 5.…”

Section: -2mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Effective light trapping in thin-film microcrystalline silicon (lc-Si:H) solar cells is crucial to obtain high photocurrent and to reduce the absorber layer thickness, which in state-of-the-art devices is commonly realized using randomly textured substrates. [1][2][3][4][5] Recently, plasmonic metal nanoparticles have attracted extensive interest to further improve the light trapping in solar cells since metal nanoparticles can efficiently scatter the incident light into absorber layer. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Enhanced photocurrent in lc-Si:H solar cells has been demonstrated using periodic metallic gratings and random metal nanoparticles as rear reflectors, which here we refer to as plasmonic back reflector (BR).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved light trapping in microcrystalline silicon solar cells by plasmonic back reflector with broad angular scattering and low parasitic absorption

Hui‐min

Sivec²,

Yan³

et al. 2013

Applied Physics Letters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We show experimentally that the photocurrent of thin-film hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (lc-Si:H) solar cells can be enhanced by 4.5 mA/cm 2 with a plasmonic back reflector (BR). The light trapping performance is improved using plasmonic BR with broader angular scattering and lower parasitic absorption loss through tuning the size of silver nanoparticles. The lc-Si:H solar cells deposited on the improved plasmonic BR demonstrate a high photocurrent of 26.3 mA/cm 2 which is comparable to the state-of-the-art textured Ag/ZnO BR. The commonly observed deterioration of fill factor is avoided by using lc-SiO x :H as the n-layer for solar cells deposited on plasmonic BR. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC [http://dx

show abstract

Optimization of back reflector for high efficiency hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon solar cells

Cited by 117 publications

References 6 publications

Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells: Design and Experiment

Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells: Design and Experiment

Light Trapping in Plasmonic Solar Cells

Improved light trapping in microcrystalline silicon solar cells by plasmonic back reflector with broad angular scattering and low parasitic absorption

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About