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Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Thick wafer-silicon is the dominant solar cell technology. It is of great interest to develop ultra-thin solar cells that can reduce materials usage, but still achieve acceptable performance and high solar absorption. Accordingly, we developed a highly absorbing ultra-thin crystalline Si based solar...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pathi, Prathap, Peer, Akshit, Biswas, Rana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5295207/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28336851
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano7010017
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author Pathi, Prathap
Peer, Akshit
Biswas, Rana
author_facet Pathi, Prathap
Peer, Akshit
Biswas, Rana
author_sort Pathi, Prathap
collection PubMed
description Thick wafer-silicon is the dominant solar cell technology. It is of great interest to develop ultra-thin solar cells that can reduce materials usage, but still achieve acceptable performance and high solar absorption. Accordingly, we developed a highly absorbing ultra-thin crystalline Si based solar cell architecture using periodically patterned front and rear dielectric nanocone arrays which provide enhanced light trapping. The rear nanocones are embedded in a silver back reflector. In contrast to previous approaches, we utilize dielectric photonic crystals with a completely flat silicon absorber layer, providing expected high electronic quality and low carrier recombination. This architecture creates a dense mesh of wave-guided modes at near-infrared wavelengths in the absorber layer, generating enhanced absorption. For thin silicon (<2 μm) and 750 nm pitch arrays, scattering matrix simulations predict enhancements exceeding 90%. Absorption approaches the Lambertian limit at small thicknesses (<10 μm) and is slightly lower (by ~5%) at wafer-scale thicknesses. Parasitic losses are ~25% for ultra-thin (2 μm) silicon and just 1%–2% for thicker (>100 μm) cells. There is potential for 20 μm thick cells to provide 30 mA/cm(2) photo-current and >20% efficiency. This architecture has great promise for ultra-thin silicon solar panels with reduced material utilization and enhanced light-trapping.
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spelling pubmed-52952072017-03-21 Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells Pathi, Prathap Peer, Akshit Biswas, Rana Nanomaterials (Basel) Article Thick wafer-silicon is the dominant solar cell technology. It is of great interest to develop ultra-thin solar cells that can reduce materials usage, but still achieve acceptable performance and high solar absorption. Accordingly, we developed a highly absorbing ultra-thin crystalline Si based solar cell architecture using periodically patterned front and rear dielectric nanocone arrays which provide enhanced light trapping. The rear nanocones are embedded in a silver back reflector. In contrast to previous approaches, we utilize dielectric photonic crystals with a completely flat silicon absorber layer, providing expected high electronic quality and low carrier recombination. This architecture creates a dense mesh of wave-guided modes at near-infrared wavelengths in the absorber layer, generating enhanced absorption. For thin silicon (<2 μm) and 750 nm pitch arrays, scattering matrix simulations predict enhancements exceeding 90%. Absorption approaches the Lambertian limit at small thicknesses (<10 μm) and is slightly lower (by ~5%) at wafer-scale thicknesses. Parasitic losses are ~25% for ultra-thin (2 μm) silicon and just 1%–2% for thicker (>100 μm) cells. There is potential for 20 μm thick cells to provide 30 mA/cm(2) photo-current and >20% efficiency. This architecture has great promise for ultra-thin silicon solar panels with reduced material utilization and enhanced light-trapping. MDPI 2017-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5295207/ /pubmed/28336851 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano7010017 Text en © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Pathi, Prathap
Peer, Akshit
Biswas, Rana
Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
title Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
title_full Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
title_fullStr Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
title_full_unstemmed Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
title_short Nano-Photonic Structures for Light Trapping in Ultra-Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
title_sort nano-photonic structures for light trapping in ultra-thin crystalline silicon solar cells
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5295207/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28336851
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano7010017
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