Triangular metallic gratings for large absorption enhancement in thin film Si solar cells

Battal, Enes; Yogurt, Taha Alper; Aygün, Levent E.; Okyay, Ali Kemal

doi:10.1364/oe.20.009458

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The absorption A is readily obtained from the reflectivity R as A = 1-R. Figures 7(a) and 7(b) show the calculated and measured absorption with the PhC and quasi-random nanostructure applied, respectively. The FDTD simulation (Lumerical Inc, FDTD solutions) allows us to separate the beneficial absorption in GaAs from the parasitic absorption in the metal by using a mesh of 2 nm grid size and adding an analysis group into the 135 nm thick GaAs layer [37]. We note similar trends between the calculation and the experiment by including the parasitic absorption of the Au layer.…”

Section: ( ) ( )mentioning

confidence: 82%

Paths to light trapping in thin film GaAs solar cells

Xiao¹,

Fang²,

Su³

et al. 2018

Opt. Express

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It is now well established that light trapping is an essential element of thin film solar cell design. Numerous light trapping geometries have already been applied to thin film cells, especially to silicon-based devices. Less attention has been paid to light trapping in GaAs thin film cells, mainly because light trapping is considered less attractive due to the material's direct bandgap and the fact that GaAs suffers from strong surface recombination, which particularly affects etched nanostructures. Here, we study light trapping structures that are implemented in a high-bandgap material on the back of the GaAs active layer, thereby not perturbing the integrity of the GaAs active layer. We study photonic crystal and quasi-random nanostructures both by simulation and by experiment and find that the photonic crystal structures are superior because they exhibit fewer but stronger resonances that are better matched to the narrow wavelength range where GaAs benefits from light trapping. In fact, we show that a 1500 nm thick cell with photonic crystals achieves the same short circuit current as an unpatterned 4000 nm thick cell. These findings are significant because they afford a sizeable reduction in active layer thickness, and therefore a reduction in expensive epitaxial growth time and cost, yet without compromising performance.

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Section: ( ) ( )mentioning

confidence: 82%

Paths to light trapping in thin film GaAs solar cells

Xiao¹,

Fang²,

Su³

et al. 2018

Opt. Express

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“…For a thin-film solar cell with rear surface modified plasmonic structures, the lower part of the solar spectrum is not obstructed and weakly absorbed red to near-infrared part of the spectrum is trapped and enhanced to get an increased optical path length inside the thin film [7]. Apart from being an effective back reflector, the thin metal layer at the rear side of a thin-film solar cell also excites the SPP or LSP modes through nanostructured grooves [14], gratings [10,13,18], or photonic crystals [19]. Light-scattering elements in such back reflectors essentially perform two functionalities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface Plasmon Polariton-coupled Waveguide Back Reflector in Thin-film Silicon Solar Cell

Prabhathan

Murukeshan

2015

Plasmonics

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Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguidecoupled back reflector geometry is proposed for efficient light trapping and broadband absorption enhancement in thin-film silicon solar cells. The proposed geometry takes advantage of the localized surface plasmon (LSP) enhancement, FabryPerot (FP) resonance, and strong electric field confinement resulting from the SPP interference in a metal waveguide. It is shown that the designed light trapping structures contribute to significant light trapping and enhancement in the red to near-infrared part of the solar spectrum. For a thin-film silicon solar cell of 220-nm thickness, an absorption enhancement of 153 % is obtained when compared to a bare silicon solar cell. In comparison to other SPP-excited back reflection geometries, such as nano-gratings and nano-grooves, the proposed configuration shows a higher absorption enhancement factor and uniform field distribution inside the silicon layer. These results are expected to introduce new directions in the design of optimized nanoscale back reflectors in thin-film silicon solar cells.

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“…Antireflection has been a hot topic for a long time because of its applications in many fields, such as corrective lenses [1], photolithography [2], infrared detection [3][4][5], and solar cells [6][7][8]. Generally, antireflection can be achieved by various methods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broadband and wide-angle antireflection realized by multireflection effect in a micro-∧-shape array

et al. 2013

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Antireflective surfaces are often realized by minimizing the refractive index contrast between the air and substrate using subwavelength microstructures. In this paper, we introduce another kind of geometry-induced antireflective surface using multireflection to suppress reflection to a very low extent. This surface is composed of micro-∧-shape array with the wedge size much larger than the wavelength of the incident light. Simulation and experimental results show that the micro-∧-shape array can effectively suppress the reflection within wide incident angles and large wavelength ranges. The enhanced light adsorption caused by the greatly increased light path length within the micro-∧-shape array is responsible for the antireflection phenomena. Such antireflective surface may find various applications, in solar cells, for example.

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Triangular metallic gratings for large absorption enhancement in thin film Si solar cells

Cited by 18 publications

References 21 publications

Paths to light trapping in thin film GaAs solar cells

Paths to light trapping in thin film GaAs solar cells

Surface Plasmon Polariton-coupled Waveguide Back Reflector in Thin-film Silicon Solar Cell

Broadband and wide-angle antireflection realized by multireflection effect in a micro-∧-shape array

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