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Effect of aperiodicity on the broadband reflection of silicon nanorod structures for photovoltaics

Chenxi Lin, Ningfeng Huang, and Michelle L. Povinelli

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

We carry out a systematic numerical study of the effects of aperiodicity on silicon nanorod anti-reflection structures. We use the scattering matrix method to calculate the average reflection loss over the solar spectrum for periodic and aperiodic arrangements of nanorods. We find that aperiodicity can either improve or deteriorate the anti-reflection performance, depending on the nanorod diameter. We use a guided random-walk algorithm to design optimal aperiodic structures that exhibit lower reflection loss than both optimal periodic and random aperiodic structures.

©2011 Optical Society of America

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Figures (4)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Schematic diagrams of periodic (a), almost periodic (b), and random (c) anti-reflection nanostructures.

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Fig. 2
Fig. 2 (a) Top view of one unit cell in a periodic structure. (b) Average reflection loss (ARL) as a function of lattice constant and d/a ratio. (c) Reflectance spectra for periodic structures with a fixed filling ratio of 0.38 for a range of lattice constants. The white dashed line indicates the diffraction limit in air (a = λ).

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Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Average reflection loss (ARL) as a function of nanorod diameter for periodic structures, almost periodic structures (10% positional disorder), random aperiodic structures, and optimally designed aperiodic structures.

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Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Reflectance spectra for periodic, random aperiodic, and optimal aperiodic structures, averaged over TE and TM polarizations. The nanorod diameters are 70 nm (a), 140 nm (b), and 210 nm (c), respectively.

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Equations (1)

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ARL= ∫ 310nm 1127nm R TE (λ)+ R TM (λ) 2 I(λ)λdλ ∫ 310nm 1127nm I(λ)λdλ
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