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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…
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…
Improving the conversion efficiency of solar energy to electricity is most important to mankind. For single-junction photovoltaic solar-cells, the Shockley-Queisser thermodynamic efficiency limit is extensively due to the heat dissipation,…
The ability to absorb light is indispensable for high efficient solar power generation. This places conflicting requirements on the structure of a solar cell: On one hand, it needs to have thick active layers to absorb more of the available…
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…
We report on the fabrication of two-dimensional periodic photonic nanostructures by nanoimprint lithography and dry etching, and their integration into a 1-{\mu}m-thin mono-crystalline silicon solar cell. Thanks to the periodic…
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…
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…
Photonic innovation is becoming ever more important in the modern world. Optical systems are dominating shorter and shorter communications distances, LED's are rapidly emerging for a variety of applications, and solar cells show potential…
Ultrathin solar cells reduce material usage and allow the use of lower-quality materials thanks to their one order of magnitude smaller thickness than their conventional counterparts. However, efficient photonic light-trapping is required…
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…
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…
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…
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 optical absorption of nanoscale thickness semiconductor films on top of light-trapping structures based on optical interference effects combined with spectrum-splitting structures is theoretically investigated. Nearly perfect absorption…
Establishing the fundamental limit of nanophotonic light-trapping schemes is of paramount importance and is becoming increasingly urgent for current solar cell research. The standard theory of light trapping demonstrated that absorption…
The Shockley and Queisser limit, a well-known efficiency limit for a solar cell, is based on unrealistic physical assumptions and its maximum limit is seriously overestimated. To understand the power loss mechanisms of record-efficiency…
A high theoretical efficiency of 47.2% was achieved by a novel combination of In0.51Ga0.49P, GaAs, In0.24Ga0.76As and In0.19Ga0.81Sb subcell layers in a simulated quadruple junction solar cell under 1 sun concentration. The electronic…
A design tool was formulated for optimizing the efficiency of inorganic, thin-film, photovoltaic solar cells. The solar cell can have multiple semiconductor layers in addition to antireflection coatings, passivation layers, and buffer…
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…