Absorption enhancement in conformally textured thin-film silicon solar cells

Author

Thorp, David ; Campbell, Patrick ; Wenham, Stuart R.

Author_Institution

Centre for Photovoltaic Devices & Syst., New South Wales Univ., Kensington, NSW, Australia

fYear

1996

fDate

13-17 May 1996

Firstpage

705

Lastpage

708

Abstract

This paper investigates the antireflective and light trapping properties of thin silicon films conformally deposited on substrates textured with feature sizes greater than the film thickness. Ray tracing studies show that 3D textures can provide a significant advantage over grooves, and with small enough features can out-perform Lambertian light-trapping. Excellent antireflection properties and re-entry of escaping rays are responsible for the good performance. The reduced scatter with large textures can be compensated for by adding a mildly scattering sub-facet microtexture. Reflectance measurements of a conformal a-Si:H film show good agreement with predictions

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; hydrogen; light absorption; optical variables measurement; reflectivity; semiconductor thin films; silicon; solar cells; substrates; surface texture; Si; Si solar cells; Si:H; a-Si:H solar cells; absorption enhancement; antireflective properties; conformal a-Si:H film; conformally textured thin-film silicon solar cells; escaping rays re-entry; light trapping properties; ray tracing; reflectance measurements; sub-facet microtexture; textured substrates; Absorption; Costs; Light scattering; Optical films; Photovoltaic cells; Semiconductor films; Semiconductor thin films; Silicon; Substrates; Surface texture;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1996., Conference Record of the Twenty Fifth IEEE

Conference_Location

Washington, DC

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3166-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1996.564227

Filename

564227