Efficient Light Trapping in Inverted Nanopyramid Thin Crystalline Silicon Membranes for Solar Cell Applications

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2012-06-01

Author

MAVROKEFALOS, Anastassios
HAN, Sang Eon
Yerci, Selçuk
Branham, Matthew S.
CHEN, Gang

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Thin-film crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells with light-trapping structures can enhance light absorption within the semiconductor absorber layer and reduce material usage. Here we demonstrate that an inverted nanopyramid light-trapping scheme for c-Si thin films, fabricated at wafer scale via a low-cost wet etching process, significantly enhances absorption within the c-Si layer. A broadband enhancement in absorptance that approaches the Yablo-novitch limit (Yablo-novitch, E. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 1987, 72, 899-907) is achieved with minimal angle dependence. We also show that c-Si films less than 10 pm in thickness can achieve absorptance values comparable to that of planar c-Si wafers thicker than 300 pm, amounting to an over 30-fold reduction in material usage. Furthermore the surface area increases by a factor of only 1.7, which limits surface recombination losses in comparison with other nanostructured light-trapping schemes. These structures will not only significantly curtail both the material and processing cost of solar cells but also allow the high efficiency required to enable viable c-Si thin-film solar cells in the future.

Subject Keywords

Light trapping, Photovoltaics, Optical absorption, Inverted pyramids, Thin film solar cells

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/29963

Journal

NANO LETTERS

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1021/nl2045777

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Article

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Citation Formats

A. MAVROKEFALOS, S. E. HAN, S. Yerci, M. S. Branham, and G. CHEN, “Efficient Light Trapping in Inverted Nanopyramid Thin Crystalline Silicon Membranes for Solar Cell Applications,” NANO LETTERS, pp. 2792–2796, 2012, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/29963.