Related papers: Diffusive external light-trap for solar cells
The increase of cell efficiency resulting from using a diffraction grating as a back reflector is investigated. An enhancement coefficient is introduced as a figure of merit that accounts for the ability of the rear grating to increase the…
Absorbed sunlight in a solar cell produces electrons and holes. But, at the open circuit condition, the carriers have no place to go. They build up in density and, ideally, they emit external fluorescence that exactly balances the incoming…
Power-conversion efficiency is a critical factor for the wider adoption of solar-cell modules. Thin-film solar cells are cheap and easy to manufacture, but their efficiencies are low compared to crystalline-silicon solar cells and need to…
Understanding the maximal enhancement of solar absorption in semiconductor materials by light trapping promises the development of affordable solar cells. However, the conventional Lambertian limit is only valid for idealized material…
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…
We propose a light-trapping structure offering a significant enhancement of photovoltaic absorption in transparent organic solar cells operating at infrared while the visible light transmission keeps sufficiently high. The main mechanism of…
The incoherence of sunlight has long been suspected to have an impact on solar cell energy conversion efficiency, although the extent of this is unclear. Existing computational methods used to optimize solar cell efficiency under incoherent…
Nano-scaled dielectric and metallic structures are popular light tapping structures in thin-film solar cells. However, a large parasitic absorption in those structures is unavoidable. Most schemes based on such structures also involve the…
Creating a single bandgap solar cell that approaches the Shockley-Queisser limit requires a highly reflective rear mirror. This mirror enhances the voltage of the solar cell by providing photons with multiple opportunities for escaping out…
Light trapping for solar cells can reduce production cost and improve energy conversion efficiency. Understanding some of the basic theoretical constraints on light trapping is therefore of fundamental importance. Here, we develop a general…
We suggest a novel concept of efficient light-trapping structures for thin-film solar cells based on arrays of planar nanoantennas operating far from plasmonic resonances. The operation principle of our structures relies on the excitation…
Thin film solar cells have been attractive for decades in advanced green technology platforms due to its possibilities to be integrated with buildings and on-chip applications. However, the bottleneck issues involved to consider the current…
It has gradually been recognized that incoming sunlight can be trapped within a high refractive index semiconductor, n~3.5, owing to the narrow 16degree escape cone. The solar light inside a semiconductor is 4n^2 times brighter than…
Theoretically and experimentally we have proved the existence of optimal thickness of the porous layer used as an anti-reflection coating in solar cells. We have taken into account the joint mechanisms of generation and recombination of…
Low cost, highly efficient, and stable solar cells demand low temperature processing, less stringent criteria on materials, and possibility of dynamic recovery from long term degradation: a combination of features unachievable from the…
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…
We propose a new concept for the design of high-efficiency photocells based on ultra-thin (submicron) semiconductor films of controlled thickness. Using a microscopic model of a thin dielectric layer interacting with incident…
We propose a frequency selective light trapping scheme that enables the creation of more visually-transparent and yet simultaneously more efficient semitransparent solar cells. A nanoparticle scattering layer and photonic stack back…
Light trapping in solar cells allows for increased current and voltage, as well as reduced materials cost. It is known that in geometrical optics, a maximum 4n^2 absorption enhancement factor can be achieved by randomly texturing the…
Thin-film solar cells that are considered as the second generation of solar cells are known for their low cost and acceptable efficiency. In this technology, semiconductor layers with a thickness of micrometer are deposited on thick enough…