Abstract
An efficient light trapping scheme is a key to enhancing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) cells by compensating for the insufficient light absorption. To handle optical components from nano-scale to micro-scale seamlessly, a multi-scale optical simulation is carefully designed in this study and is used to qualitatively analyze the light trapping performances of a micro lens array (MLA), a V-shaped configuration, and the newly proposed scheme, which is termed a double parabolic trapper (DPT) according to both daily and annual movement of the sun. DPT has the potential to enhance the PCE significantly, from 5.9% to 8.9%, for PCDTBT:PC70BM-based polymer solar cells by perfectly trapping the incident light between two parabolic PV cells.
©2013 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Soo Jin Kim, George Y. Margulis, Seung-Bum Rim, Mark L. Brongersma, Michael D. McGehee, and Peter Peumans
Opt. Express 21(S3) A305-A312 (2013)
Constantin Simovski, Dmitry Morits, Pavel Voroshilov, Michael Guzhva, Pavel Belov, and Yuri Kivshar
Opt. Express 21(S4) A714-A725 (2013)
Khai Q. Le and Sajeev John
Opt. Express 22(S1) A1-A12 (2014)