Simulation and analysis of the angular response of 1D dielectric nanophotonic light-trapping structures in thin-film photovoltaics

Peng Wang; Rajesh Menon

doi:10.1364/OE.20.00A545

Optics Express
Vol. 20,
Issue S4,
pp. A545-A553
(2012)
•https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.20.00A545

Simulation and analysis of the angular response of 1D dielectric nanophotonic light-trapping structures in thin-film photovoltaics

Peng Wang and Rajesh Menon

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Peng Wang and Rajesh Menon, "Simulation and analysis of the angular response of 1D dielectric nanophotonic light-trapping structures in thin-film photovoltaics," Opt. Express 20, A545-A553 (2012)

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Abstract

Nanophotonics can guide the design of novel structures for light-trapping in ultra-thin photovoltaic cells. Here, we report on the systematic study of the effect of the angle of incidence of sunlight on the performance of such structures. We also conduct a parametric study of a sinusoidal grating and demonstrate that light intensity in the active region averaged over a range of input angles from 0° to 80° can be enhanced by more than 3 times compared to the bare device. Such a broadband light-trapping nanostructure can increase the total daily energy production of a fixed (non-tracking) device by over 60%, compared to a reference device with an anti-reflection coating.

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Fig. 1 Effect of oblique incidence on (A) square-grating and (B) sinusoidal-grating scattering structures atop an ultra-thin active device layer. F_θ and J_θ refer to light-intensity and short-circuit current-density enhancements with respect to a device that does not contain the scattering and cladding layers, respectively. (C) and (D) show the enhancement spectra as a function of incident angle for the square and sinusoidal gratings, respectively. Note the sharp peaks, which indicate specific guided modes that are excited within the active layer.

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Fig. 2 Effect of grating period. (A) Overall enhancement factors as a function of grating period, Λ. (B) Enhancement factor at a given incident angle, F_θ as a function of Λ. (C)-(F) Spectra of enhancement factor, F_θ for θ = 0°, 20°, 40° and 60°, respectively.

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Fig. 3 Effect of cladding-layer thickness, t_c. (A) Overall enhancement factors as a function of t_c. (B) Enhancement factor, F_θ as a function of t_c. (C)-(F) Spectra of enhancement factor, F_θ for θ = 0°, 20°, 40° and 60°, respectively.

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Fig. 4 Effect of scattering-layer thickness, t_s. (A) Overall enhancement factors as a function of t_s. (B) Enhancement factor, F_θ as a function of t_s. (C)-(F) Spectra of enhancement factor, F_θ for θ = 0°, 20°, 40° and 60°, respectively.

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Fig. 5 Daily energy output per unit area in the non-tracking configuration for a bare device (left), a device with an anti-reflection coating (ARC) (center), and a device with the nanophotonic structure (right).

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Equations (8)

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{\bar{I}}_{λ} (x, z, θ) = \int_{λ} I (λ, x, z, θ) d λ

S (θ) = \frac{1}{Λ} \iint_{a c t i v e} {\bar{I}}_{λ} (x, z, θ) d x d z

\begin{array}{l} F_{θ} = \frac{S (θ)}{S_{r e f} (θ)} \\ F = \int_{0}^{θ_{\max}} F_{θ} d θ, \end{array}

\begin{array}{l} j_{s c} (θ) = \frac{q}{t_{a} Λ} \iint_{a c t i v e} (\int_{λ} Φ (λ, x, z, θ) I Q E (λ) d λ) d x d z, \\ Φ (λ, x, z, θ) = \frac{I (λ, x, z, θ)}{h c / λ}, \end{array}

\begin{array}{l} J_{θ} = \frac{j_{s c} (θ)}{j_{s c,}_{r e f} (θ)} \\ J = \int_{0}^{θ_{\max}} J_{θ} d θ, \end{array}

v_{o c} = \frac{E_{g} + k T \ln (j_{s c} \frac{4 π^{2} h^{3} c^{2}}{q (n^{2} + 1) E_{g}^{2} k T})}{q},

p (θ) = j_{s c} (θ) \cdot v_{o c} (θ) \cdot F F,

E = \int_{- 90^{o}}^{90^{o}} p (θ) d θ

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Equations (8)

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