Journal ArticleDOI
Light trapping in thin-film silicon solar cells with integrated diffraction grating
Rahul Dewan,Dietmar Knipp +1 more
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In this paper, periodic grating couplers were integrated in microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells and the influence of the grating dimensions on the short circuit current and the quantum efficiency was investigated by the numerical simulation of Maxwell's equations utilizing the finite difference time domain algorithm.Abstract:
The optics of microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells with integrated light trapping structures was investigated. Periodic grating couplers were integrated in microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells and the influence of the grating dimensions on the short circuit current and the quantum efficiency was investigated by the numerical simulation of Maxwell’s equations utilizing the finite difference time domain algorithm. The grating structure leads to scattering and higher order diffraction resulting in an increased absorption of the incident light in the silicon thin-film solar cell. The influence of the grating period and the grating height on the short circuit current and the quantum efficiency was investigated. Enhanced quantum efficiencies are observed for the red and infrared parts of the optical spectrum. Optimal dimensions of the grating coupler were obtained.read more
Citations
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Photonic light-trapping versus Lambertian limits in thin film silicon solar cells with 1D and 2D periodic patterns.
TL;DR: The main physical effects of patterning are focused on, namely a reduction of reflection losses, diffraction of light in air or inside the cell, and coupling of incident radiation into quasi-guided optical modes of the structure, which is characteristic of photonic light-trapping.
Journal ArticleDOI
2D back-side diffraction grating for improved light trapping in thin silicon solar cells
TL;DR: Numerical investigation of a light trapping design consisting of a 2D back-side diffraction grating in combination with an aluminum mirror and a spacing layer of low permittivity to minimize parasitic absorption in the aluminum yields higher current density than two recently published designs for cell thickness of 2 and 5 microm, respectively.
Journal ArticleDOI
Influence of front and back grating on light trapping in microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cells.
TL;DR: The optics of microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cells with textured interfaces was investigated and the front and back textures were approximated by line gratings to simplify the analysis of the wave propagation in the textured solar cell.
Journal ArticleDOI
Light trapping regimes in thin-film silicon solar cells with a photonic pattern.
TL;DR: By patterning thin-film silicon solar cells with a periodic etching in addition to an antireflection coating, this work increases the short-circuit current up to 36.5%.
Journal ArticleDOI
Optical enhancement and losses of pyramid textured thin-film silicon solar cells
TL;DR: In this paper, the optical enhancement and losses of microcrystalline thin-film silicon solar cells with periodic pyramid textures were investigated using a finite difference time domain algorithm, the optical wave propagation in the solar cell structure was calculated by rigorously solving the Maxwell's equations.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TCO and light trapping in silicon thin film solar cells
TL;DR: In this article, the effect of aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) front contact and the role of the back reflector on the performance of thin-film silicon solar cells is investigated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Improving thin-film crystalline silicon solar cell efficiencies with photonic crystals
TL;DR: Here, a photonic crystal-based light-trapping approach is analyzed and compared to previous approaches for c-Si thin film solar cells, which gives rise to weak absorption of one-third of usable solar photons.
Journal ArticleDOI
Submicrometer gratings for solar energy applications.
Claus Heine,R. Morf +1 more
TL;DR: A wideband antireflection structure for glass that consists of a diffraction grating with a dielectric overcoat, which leads to an average reflection of less than 0.6% in the wavelength range between 300 and 2100 nm is presented.
Journal ArticleDOI
Photonic crystal enhanced light-trapping in thin film solar cells
Dayu Zhou,Rana Biswas +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, photonic crystals were utilized to simulate enhanced light-trapping in a-Si:H thin-film solar cells, where a one dimensional photonic crystal or distributed Bragg reflector with alternating dielectric layers acts as low loss backreflector.