Related papers: Semiconductor solar superabsorber
Nano-scaled metallic or dielectric structures may provide various ways to trap light into thin-film solar cells for improving the conversion efficiency. In most schemes, the textured active layers are involved into light trapping structures…
Textured silicon surface structures, in particular black silicon (b-Si), open up possibilities for Si-based solar cells and photodetectors to be extremely thin and highly sensitive owing to perfect light-trapping and anti-reflection…
The Shockley-Queisser limit is one of the most fundamental results in the field of photovoltaics. Based on the principle of detailed balance, it defines an upper limit for a single junction solar cell that uses an absorber material with a…
We present a guide for the design and fabrication of a CMOS-compatible metamaterial microstructure as an absorber of visible light with exceptionally high absorption efficiency (~ 98%), for wavelengths 400nm-700nm. The structural parameters…
The light absorption of a monolayer graphene-molybdenum disulfide photovoltaic (GM-PV) cell in a wedge-shaped microcavity with a spectrum-splitting structure is investigated theoretically. The GM-PV cell, which is three times thinner than…
The role of image charges in nanoporous semiconductor materials is investigated within the framework of the effective mass and envelope function approximations. We show that nanometric air bubbles in these materials can act as…
Intermediate band solar cells (IBSCs) pursue the increase in efficiency by absorbing below-bandgap energy photons while preserving the output voltage. Experimental IBSCs based on quantum dots have already demonstrated that both…
Light absorption at the boundary of indirect-band-gap and direct-forbidden gap semiconductors is analyzed. It is found that the possibility of the electron momentum nonconservation at the interface leads to essential enhancement of…
We present the design for an absorbing metamaterial element with near unity absorbance. Our structure consists of two metamaterial resonators that couple separately to electric and magnetic fields so as to absorb all incident radiation…
In conventional solar cell semiconductor materials (predominantly Si) photons with energy higher than the band gap initially generate hot electrons and holes, which subsequently cool down to the band edge by phonon emission. Due to the…
This paper introduces the design and comprehensive characterization of a novel three-layer metamaterial absorber, engineered to exploit the unique optical properties of gold, vanadium dioxide, and silicon dioxide. At the core of this…
We demonstrate the optical absorption has been enhanced in the small molecule organic solar cells by employing trapezoid grating structure. The enhanced absorption is mainly attributed to both waveguide modes and surface plasmon modes,…
Recently, we have suggested dielectric metamaterial composed as an array of submicron dielectric spheres located on top of an amorphous thin-film solar cell. We have theoretically shown that this metamaterial can decrease the reflection and…
Electromagnetic absorbers combining ultrathin profiles with robust absorptivity across wide incidence angles are essential for applications such as stealth technology, wireless communications, and quantum computing. Traditional designs,…
Diamond silicon (Si) is the leading material in current solar cell market. However, diamond Si is an indirect band gap semiconductor with a large energy difference (2.4 eV) between the direct gap and the indirect gap, which makes it an…
In this paper, we present a theoretical study on the absorption efficiency enhancement of a thin film amorphous Silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic cell over a broad spectrum of wavelengths using multiple nanoparticle arrays. The light absorption…
A simple thermodynamic argument related to a (weakly absorbing) finite dielectric slab illuminated by sunlight- originally suggested by Yablonovich- leads to the conclusion that the absorption in a dielectric can at best be increased by a…
Absorption of microwave by metallic conductors is exclusively inefficient, though being natively broadband, due to the huge impedance mismatch between metal and free space. Reducing the thickness to ultrathin conductive film may improve the…
We present a concept for an ultra-thin solar fuel device with a nanostructured back contact. Using rigorous simulations we show that the nanostructuring significantly increases the absorption in the semiconductor, CuBi$_2$O$_4$ in this…
We present state-of-the-art first-principle calculations of the electronic and optical properties of silicon allotropes with interesting characteristics for applications in thin-film solar cells. These new phases consist of distorted sp$^3$…