Optical absorption characteristics of nanometer and submicron a-Si:H solar cells with two kinds of nano textures

The optical absorption properties of a-Si:H have acquired much attention in solar cell(SC) research. In this paper, we studied enhancement of light absorption in the a-Si:H(10%H) SCs with thicknesses from 31.25nm to 2μm and with nano textures of the column-shaped nanohole (CLNH) array and of the con...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics express 2013-07, Vol.21 (15), p.18043-18052
Main Authors: Ziang, Xie, Wei, Wang, Laixiang, Qin, Wanjin, Xu, Qin, G G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absorption
Computer Simulation
Computer-Aided Design
Electric Power Supplies
Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Hydrogen - chemistry
Hydrogen - radiation effects
Models, Theoretical
Nanoparticles - chemistry
Nanoparticles - radiation effects
Nanopores - ultrastructure
Refractometry - instrumentation
Silicon - chemistry
Silicon - radiation effects
Solar Energy
Surface Properties
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Summary:The optical absorption properties of a-Si:H have acquired much attention in solar cell(SC) research. In this paper, we studied enhancement of light absorption in the a-Si:H(10%H) SCs with thicknesses from 31.25nm to 2μm and with nano textures of the column-shaped nanohole (CLNH) array and of the cone-shaped nanohole (CNNH) array, via the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulation. For a given type of nano texture and film thickness, d, the ultimate efficiency, the ideal efficiency without considering carrier combinations, is optimized over array period, p, and filling fraction, f, and is defined as the optimized ultimate efficiency, η(0). The simulation results demonstrated that: even for the CLNH textured a-Si:H(10%H) SCs as thin as 62.5 nm,η(0) is 19.7%. When the a-Si:H(10%H) SC is thinner than a critical depth of about 250nm, the CLNH texture is more efficient than the CNNH texture, and vice versa. When the thicknesses of SCs are very thin, especially smaller than 100nm, the efficiencies of the a-Si:H(10%H) SCs are evidently higher than those of the c-Si SCs. For example, in the CLNH arrays, when d = 62.5nm, η(0)for the a-Si:H(10%H) SCs is higher than the c-Si SCs by a factor of approximate 2.3.
ISSN:1094-4087
1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/OE.21.018043