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Enhanced Absorption in Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells Using Plasmonic and Photonic Crystals – Measurement and Simulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2019

Benjamin Curtin ,
Rana Biswas  and
Vikram Dalal
Benjamin Curtin
Affiliation:
Microelectronics Research Center; Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, U.S.A.
Rana Biswas
Affiliation:
Microelectronics Research Center; Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, U.S.A. Dept. of Physics & Astronomy; Ames Lab, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, U.S.A.
Vikram Dalal
Affiliation:
Microelectronics Research Center; Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, U.S.A.
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Abstract

We develop experimentally and theoretically plasmonic and photonic crystals for enhancing thin film silicon solar cells. Thin film amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells suffer from decreased absorption of red and near-infrared photons, where the photon absorption length is large. Simulations predict maximal light absorption for a pitch of 700-800 nm for photonic crystal hole arrays in silver or ZnO/Ag back reflectors, with absorption increases of ~12%. The photonic crystal improves over the ideal randomly roughened back reflector (or the ‘4n2 limit’) at wavelengths near the band edge. We fabricated metallic photonic crystal back-reflectors using photolithography and reactive-ion etching. We conformally deposited a-Si:H solar cells on triangular lattice hole arrays of pitch 760 nm on silver back-reflectors. Electron microscopy demonstrates excellent long range periodicity and conformal a-Si:H growth. The measured quantum efficiency increases by 7-8 %, relative to a flat reflector reference device, with enhancement factors exceeding 6 at near-infrared wavelengths. The photonic crystal back reflector strongly diffracts light and increases optical path lengths of solar photons.

Keywords

Sioptical propertiesenergy generation
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1248: Symposium D – Solution Processing of Inorganic and Hybrid Materials for Electronics and Photonics , 2010 , 1248-D05-03
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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