Absorption enhancement in ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells with antireflection and light-trapping nanocone gratings

Ken Xingze Wang; Zongfu Yu; Victor Liu; Yi Cui; Shanhui Fan

doi:10.1021/nl204550q

Absorption enhancement in ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells with antireflection and light-trapping nanocone gratings

Nano Lett. 2012 Mar 14;12(3):1616-9. doi: 10.1021/nl204550q. Epub 2012 Feb 29.

Authors

Ken Xingze Wang¹, Zongfu Yu, Victor Liu, Yi Cui, Shanhui Fan

Affiliation

¹ Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

PMID: 22356436
DOI: 10.1021/nl204550q

Abstract

Enhancing the light absorption in ultrathin-film silicon solar cells is important for improving efficiency and reducing cost. We introduce a double-sided grating design, where the front and back surfaces of the cell are separately optimized for antireflection and light trapping, respectively. The optimized structure yields a photocurrent of 34.6 mA/cm(2) at an equivalent thickness of 2 μm, close to the Yablonovitch limit. This approach is applicable to various thicknesses and is robust against metallic loss in the back reflector.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Absorption
Electric Power Supplies*
Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Lenses*
Light
Nanostructures / chemistry*
Nanostructures / ultrastructure*
Particle Size
Refractometry / instrumentation*
Scattering, Radiation
Silicon / chemistry*
Solar Energy*

Substances

Silicon