Broadband and wide-angle light harvesting by ultra-thin silicon solar cells with partially embedded dielectric spheres

Abstract

We propose a design of crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells (c-Si TFSCs, 2 μm-thick) configured with partially embedded dielectric spheres on the light-injecting side. The intrinsic light trapping and photoconversion are simulated by the complete optoelectronic simulation. It shows that the embedding depth of the spheres provides an effective way to modulate and significantly enhance the optical absorption. Compared to the conventional planar and front sphere systems, the optimized partially embedded sphere design enables a broadband, wide-angle, and strong optical absorption and efficient carrier transportation. Optoelectronic simulation predicts that a 2 μm-thick c-Si TFSC with half-embedded spheres shows an increment of more than $10\mathrm{mA}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ in short-circuit current density and an enhancement ratio of more than 56% in light-conversion efficiency, compared to the conventional planar counterparts.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

High-efficiency photon capturing in ultrathin silicon solar cells with front nanobowl texture and truncated-nanopyramid reflector

Zhenhai Yang, Xiaofeng Li, Shaolong Wu, Pingqi Gao, and Jichun Ye
Opt. Lett. 40(6) 1077-1080 (2015)

Ultra-broadband performance enhancement of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells with conformal zig–zag configuration

Zhenhai Yang, Aixue Shang, Yaohui Zhan, Cheng Zhang, and Xiaofeng Li
Opt. Lett. 38(23) 5071-5074 (2013)

Enhanced light-harvesting capability for silicon single-nanowire solar cells coupled with metallic cavity

Feng Gai, Cheng Zhang, Yaohui Zhan, and Xiaofeng Li
Opt. Express 24(26) A1505-A1513 (2016)

Wide-angle light-trapping electrode for photovoltaic cells

Mikhail M. Omelyanovich and Constantin R. Simovski
Opt. Lett. 42(19) 3726-3729 (2017)

Light-trapping schemes for silicon thin-film solar cells via super-quadratic subwavelength gratings

Ke Chen, Rui Wu, Hongmei Zheng, Haishuo Wang, Guojun Zhang, and Shunhua Chen
Appl. Opt. 58(31) 8702-8712 (2019)