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Design, fabrication and optical characterization of photonic crystal assisted thin film monocrystalline-silicon solar cells

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Abstract

In this paper, we present the integration of an absorbing photonic crystal within a monocrystalline silicon thin film photovoltaic stack fabricated without epitaxy. Finite difference time domain optical simulations are performed in order to design one- and two-dimensional photonic crystals to assist crystalline silicon solar cells. The simulations show that the 1D and 2D patterned solar cell stacks would have an increased integrated absorption in the crystalline silicon layer would increase of respectively 38% and 50%, when compared to a similar but unpatterned stack, in the whole wavelength range between 300 nm and 1100 nm. In order to fabricate such patterned stacks, we developed an effective set of processes based on laser holographic lithography, reactive ion etching and inductively coupled plasma etching. Optical measurements performed on the patterned stacks highlight the significant absorption increase achieved in the whole wavelength range of interest, as expected by simulation. Moreover, we show that with this design, the angle of incidence has almost no influence on the absorption for angles as high as around 60°.

©2012 Optical Society of America

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Figures (8)

Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Complete patterned stack studied, in the case of a 1D PC. Photogenerated carriers originating from the c-Si active layer are collected through the ITO and the Al layers.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2 Simulated absorption spectra of the patterned 2D and 1D PC c-Si layer with the same period, sff and etching depth (L = 0.61 µm, sff = 35% and h = 0.14 µm) compared to the one of a planar c-Si layer of the same thickness (1 µm).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Simulated absorption spectra averaged on both TE and TM polarizations in (a) the whole stack, (b) the ITO layer and (c) the c-Si layer for the 1D and 2D PC patterned stacks (L, sff and h set to 0.61 µm, 35% and 0.14 µm respectively).
Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Main steps of the processes enabling to generate the patterned stack as a 1D and 2D PC through LHL (a, b), RIE(c, e) and ICP (d) combined with (f) final sputtering.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Top (a), (c) and profile (b), (d) view of a c-Si layer patterned as a 1D network (L ≈0.55 µm, D ≈0.28 µm) and a 2D network of round holes (L ≈0.55 µm, D ≈0.35 µm) into a 0.18–0.25 µm depth. Pictures obtained by SEM after removing the hard mask layer and before ITO deposition.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6 Comparison of the measured and simulated absorption spectra for the (a) 1D and (b) 2D patterned stacks.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7 The measured absorption spectra comparison between the (a) 1D and (b) 2D patterned and the unpatterned stacks with and without the front ITO layer.
Fig. 8
Fig. 8 (a) the incident angle dependence comparison between simulation and measurement of the 1D and 2D patterned stacks, as well as a reference stack, the absorption spectra comparison at 26° incident angle in (b) 1D patterned stack and (c) 2D patterned stack.
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