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Efficient optical absorption in thin-film solar cells

Lili Yang, Yimin Xuan, and Junjie Tan

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

In order to improve the optical absorption of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film solar cells, a new structure consisted of ITO layer with the nonresonant nanoparticles embedded in it and a-Si:H layer, is proposed. By optimizing both the thickness of a-Si:H layer and nanoparticles size, the effects of Fabry-Perot resonance and the scattering of incident light are discussed and analyzed. It is demonstrated that the enhanced optical absorption can be achieved due to the coupling of incident light and nanostructure, simultaneously the proposed structure can be considered as gradient refractive index structure to restrain the reflection at the interface of ITO and a-Si:H thin film.

©2011 Optical Society of America

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Figures (13)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram and cross-section view of thin film solar cells structure used.

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Fig. 2
Fig. 2 Optical absorption of different film structures with varying a-Si:H layer thickness.(a, c) Optical absorption of a-Si:H/Al film structures at wavelength range 300 nm to 1000 nm and 600 nm to 650 nm, respectively.(b, d) Optical absorption of ITO/a-Si:H/Al film structures at wavelength range 300 nm to 1000 nm and 600 nm to 650 nm, respectively.

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Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Integral absorbed power of a-Si:H/Al and ITO/ a-Si:H/Al film structures with varying a-Si:H layer thickness.

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Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Normalized magnetic-field intensity distribution of a-Si:H thin film solar cell structure at the case of normal incidence, and the wavelengths is 714 nm.

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Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Mapping the absorption enhancement with varying structural parameters. For all nanoparticle-added cases, the nanoparticles are embedded in ITO. Absorption enhancement with both wavelength and nanoparticle radius. The other parameters h 1, h 2, h 3 are 100 nm, 250 nm, 100 nm, respectively and the period Λ x = Λ y = 100 nm.

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Fig. 6
Fig. 6 Cross-section view of ITO layer structure.

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Fig. 7
Fig. 7 Magnetic-field intensity plots across Al nanoparticle (a) in air and (b) embedded in ITO of proposed structure.

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Fig. 8
Fig. 8 Wavelength-dependent absorption of the structure with nanoparticles and without nanoparticles.

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Fig. 9
Fig. 9 Wavelength-dependent absorption enhancement of a-Si:H thickness of 250 nm for different nanoparticle sizes of 10 nm, 20 nm, 30 nm, 40 nm and 50 nm.

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Fig. 10
Fig. 10 Integral absorbed power with varying nanoparticle radius.

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Fig. 11
Fig. 11 Wavelength-dependent absorption with different embedded position of nanoparticles.

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Fig. 12
Fig. 12 Cross-sectional view of three structures. (a) Al nanoparticles at the surface of ITO. (b) Al nanoparticles embedded in the ITO and at the surface of a-Si:H layer at once. (c) Al nanoparticles embedded in a-Si:H layer.

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Fig. 13
Fig. 13 Wavelength-dependent absorption with different nanoparticle positions.

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Equations (6)

Equations on this page are rendered with MathJax. Learn more.

{ ∇ × H = ∂ D ∂ t D = ε E             ∇ × E = − ∂ B ∂ t B = μ H         ,
λ k = 4 n d 2 p − 1 ,
ε r , e f f = ε r , I T O [ 1 − 3 ϕ ( ε r , I T O − ε r , p ) 2 ε r , I T O + ε r , p + ϕ ( ε r , I T O − ε r , p ) ] ,
C a b s = 2 π λ Im [ α ] ,
C s c a = 8 π 3 3 λ 4 | α 2 | ,
λ k = 4 n e f f d 2 p − 1 .
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