Abstract

Here we report on an efficient light-coupling scheme with a periodic microstructured surface to enhance the performance of thin film silicon solar cells. The centerpiece of the surface structure is the hemispherical pit arrays (HPAs), which are fabricated using an inexpensive and scalable process. The integration of HPAs into micromorph tandem thin film silicon solar cells leads to superior broadband reflection suppression properties. With this design, the reflection losses of the tandem cell are reduced to only 1.5%. We demonstrate an efficiency increase from 11.67% to 12.23% compared to a conventional cell with a flat surface, with a 4.6% increase in short circuit current density. The surface microstructures reported here can be applied to a variety of photovoltaic devices to further improve their performance.

© 2015 Optical Society of America

Improvement in efficiency of micromorph tandem silicon solar cells by designing proper interfaces

Xiangqian Shen, Qingkang Wang, Peihua Wangyang, Kun Huang, Le Chen, and Daiming Liu
Opt. Lett. 40(22) 5180-5183 (2015)

Glancing angle deposited ITO films for efficiency enhancement of a-Si:H/μc-Si:H tandem thin film solar cells

Jung Woo Leem and Jae Su Yu
Opt. Express 19(S3) A258-A269 (2011)

Broadband, polarization-insensitive and wide-angle absorption enhancement of a-Si:H/μc-Si:H tandem solar cells by nanopatterning a-Si:H layer

Xiaofeng Li, Cheng Zhang, Zhenhai Yang, and Aixue Shang
Opt. Express 21(S4) A677-A686 (2013)

Design of μc-Si:H/a-Si:H coaxial tandem single-nanowire solar cells considering photocurrent matching

Guoyang Cao, Xiaofeng Li, Yaohui Zhan, Shaolong Wu, Aixue Shang, Cheng Zhang, Zhenhai Yang, and Xiongfei Zhai
Opt. Express 22(S7) A1761-A1767 (2014)

Thin-film a-Si:H solar cells processed on aluminum-induced texture (AIT) glass superstrates: prediction of light absorption enhancement

Nasim Sahraei, Marius Peters, Selvaraj Venkataraj, Armin G. Aberle, Sonya Calnan, Sven Ring, Bernd Stannowski, Rutger Schlatmann, and Rolf Stangl
Appl. Opt. 54(14) 4366-4373 (2015)