Low-temperature solution growth of textured zinc oxide films for light trapping enhancement in thin film silicon solar cells

Light trapping effect using rough surface transparent conductive oxide (TCO) is one of the best ways to achieve high efficiency thin-film silicon solar cells. Several types of rough ZnO film fabricated by metal organic chemical vapor deposition technique onto the glass, which are etched by reactive ion etching, have been proposed so far as promising TCO substrates. In this paper, newly developed ZnO substrate with extremely high light scattering property comparing with typical pyramidal texture one was developed. By applying this newly developed ZnO substrate to the solar cell, higher short circuit current of about 2% has been achieved comparing with typical pyramidal texture one without sacrificing other parameters. This result showed that the newly developed substrate is suitable as a front TCO substrate for high performance thin-film silicon solar cell.

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Disorder Improves Light Absorption in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells with Hybrid Light Trapping Structure

International Journal of Optics ◽

10.1155/2016/9371608 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2016 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yanpeng Shi ◽

Xiaodong Wang ◽

Fuhua Yang

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Periodic Structures ◽

Light Trapping ◽

Random Effect ◽

Large Field ◽

Silicon Solar Cells ◽

Trapping Effect ◽

Thin Film Silicon ◽

The Impact

We present a systematic simulation study on the impact of disorder in thin film silicon solar cells with hybrid light trapping structure. For the periodical structures introducing certain randomness in some parameters, the nanophotonic light trapping effect is demonstrated to be superior to their periodic counterparts. The nanophotonic light trapping effect can be associated with the increased modes induced by the structural disorders. Our study is a systematic proof that certain disorder is conceptually an advantage for nanophotonic light trapping concepts in thin film solar cells. The result is relevant to the large field of research on nanophotonic light trapping which currently investigates and prototypes a number of new concepts including disordered periodic and quasiperiodic textures. The random effect on the shape of the pattern (position, height, and radius) investigated in this paper could be a good approach to estimate the influence of experimental inaccuracies for periodic or quasi-periodic structures.

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Modeling of Advanced Light Trapping Approaches in Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/opl.2011.955 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1321 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Miro Zeman ◽

Olindo Isabella ◽

Klaus Jäger ◽

Pavel Babal ◽

Serge Solntsev ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Zinc Oxide ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Solar Cell ◽

Light Trapping ◽

Spherical Particles ◽

Silicon Solar Cells ◽

Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell ◽

Thin Film Silicon ◽

Negative Effect

ABSTRACTDue to the increasing complexity of thin-film silicon solar cells, the role of computer modeling for analyzing and designing these devices becomes increasingly important. The ASA program was used to study two of these advanced devices. The simulations of an amorphous silicon solar cell with silver nanoparticles embedded in a zinc oxide back reflector demonstrated the negative effect of the parasitic absorption in the particles. When using optical properties of perfectly spherical particles a modest enhancement in the external quantum efficiency was found. The simulations of a tandem micromorph solar cell, in which a zinc oxide based photonic crystal-like multilayer was incorporated as an intermediate reflector (IR), demonstrated that the IR resulted in an enhanced photocurrent in the top cell and could be used to optimize the current matching of the top and bottom cell.

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Light trapping in amorphous silicon solar cells on plastic substrates

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-769-h6.14 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 769 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Vanessa Terrazzoni-Daudrix ◽

Joelle Guillet ◽

Xavier Niquille ◽

Arvind Shah ◽

R. Morf ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Amorphous Silicon ◽

Theoretical Calculations ◽

Light Trapping ◽

Production Costs ◽

Silicon Solar Cells ◽

Plastic Substrates ◽

Trapping Effect ◽

Thin Film Silicon

AbstractIn order to simultaneously decrease the production costs of thin film silicon solar cells and obtain higher performances, the authors have studied the possibility to increase the light trapping effect within thin film silicon solar cells deposited on flexible plastic substrates. In this context, different nano-structure shapes useable for the back contacts of amorphous silicon solar cells on plastic substrates have been investigated: random textures and gratings.The optimisation of such back reflectors is so far empirical. Gratings constitute a well-known optical technique and their light trapping effect can be optimised by simulation.A first conclusion is that neither the traditional “Haze factor” determined in air for a wavelength of 650nm nor the “rms roughness” of the surfaces are sufficient as criteria to optimise the back contact roughness for light trapping in cells. The shape of grains is a further essential criterion. The authors have so far obtained a relative current enhancement of 16% for solar cells deposited on randomly textured polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as compared to a corresponding conventional solar cell co-deposited on a flat mirror (Ag) on glass. Solar cells on PET with 6.3% stabilized efficiency have until now been obtained. Theoretical calculations indicate that gratings can enhance the current of a-Si solar cells by up to 30 percent.

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