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Harvesting Photons in Thin Film Solar Cells with Photonic Crystals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Dayu Zhoue  and
Rana Biswas
Dayu Zhoue
Affiliation:
dzhou@iastate.edu, Iowa State University, Physics & Astronomy, Micreoelctronics Res Ctr & Ames Lab, Ames, IA, 50011, United States, 515-294-6987, 515-294-0689
Rana Biswas
Affiliation:
biswasr@iastate.edu,Iowa State University,Microelectronics Research Center and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,Ames,IA,50011,United States
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Abstract

Enhanced light absorption and improved photon harvesting is a major avenue to improving solar cell performance. We simulate and design photonic crystal based loss-less back reflectors. The photonic crystal is a 2-dimensional photonic crystal combined with a distributed Bragg reflector. We have designed and simulated a thin film a-Si:H solar cell with the photonic crystal reflector and an antireflection coating. The photonic crystal has square lattice symmetry and generates strong diffraction of near band edge photons in the absorber layer. The absorption of red and near-IR photons is increased by more than an order of magnitude by the photonic crystal. The photonic crystals are composed of ITO and can easily serve as a conducting back contact. This scheme can be easily extended to other solar absorber layers. We have optimized the geometry of the photonic crystal to maximize absorption using rigorous scattering matrix simulations. The optical path length with the photonic crystal can improve over the limit for a random roughened scattering surface.

Keywords

Siphotovoltaicabsorption
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1101: Symposium KK – Light Management in Photovoltaic Devices–Theory and Practice , 2008 , 1101-KK08-02
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2008

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