Transparent double-period electrode with effective light management for thin film solar cells

Abstract

Aiming to significantly enhance solar cell efficiency through light management, we designed and fabricated transparent electrodes with a double-period structure. After demonstrating a significant increase of quantum efficiency in short wavelengths with a small-period self-textured ZnO : B, and in long wavelengths with large-period texture-etched ZnO : Al, respectively, we made the double-period transparent solar cell electrode by integrating self-textured ZnO : B and texture-etched ZnO : Al on mc-Si : H solar cells, using conventional physical and chemical vapor deposition techniques. Our investigation indicates that the double-period electrode can play an important role towards improving light absorption and trapping, thus effectively increasing the efficiency and reducing the cost of electricity from the solar cells.

Artificial inverted compound eye structured polymer films with light-harvesting and self-cleaning functions for encapsulated III–V solar cell applications

“…As an alternative of conventional antireection layers, over the past years, there have been many studies on the efficiency enhancement of solar cells with textured surfaces (i.e., biomimetic micro-or nanostructures) for efficient antireection and light scattering. [11][12][13][14][15] Particularly, articial compound eye structures (CESs) inspired from corneas of insects, which are usually composed of thousands of microstructures covered with nanonipple arrays, effectively reduce the surface reection (or enhance the transmission) over wide ranges of incident wavelengths and angles because of the formation of the effective gradient-refractive-index prole between air and the bulk surface. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Besides, the CESs with microscale periods can also extend the effective optical paths and promote the transmitted diffuse lights, while keeping high total transmission properties (e.g., high optical haze).…”