Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group
Journal Home About Issues in Progress Current Issue All Issues Feature Issues

Two-dimensional disorder for broadband, omnidirectional and polarization-insensitive absorption

Matteo Burresi, Filippo Pratesi, Kevin Vynck, Mauro Prasciolu, Massimo Tormen, and Diederik S. Wiersma

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

The surface of thin-film solar cells can be tailored with photonic nanostructures to allow light trapping in the absorbing medium. This in turn increases the optical thickness of the film and thus enhances their absorption. Such a coherent light trapping is generally accomplished with deterministic photonic architectures. Here, we experimentally explore the use of a different nanostructure, a disordered one, for this purpose. We show that the disorder-induced modes in the film allow improvements in the absorption over a broad range of frequencies and impinging angles.

© 2013 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Disordered photonic structures for light harvesting in solar cells

Filippo Pratesi, Matteo Burresi, Francesco Riboli, Kevin Vynck, and Diederik S. Wiersma
Opt. Express 21(S3) A460-A468 (2013)

Broadband, polarization-insensitive and wide-angle absorption enhancement of a-Si:H/μc-Si:H tandem solar cells by nanopatterning a-Si:H layer

Xiaofeng Li, Cheng Zhang, Zhenhai Yang, and Aixue Shang
Opt. Express 21(S4) A677-A686 (2013)

Angular dependence of light trapping in nanophotonic thin-film solar cells

Michael Smeets, Vladimir Smirnov, Karsten Bittkau, Matthias Meier, Reinhard Carius, Uwe Rau, and Ulrich W. Paetzold
Opt. Express 23(24) A1575-A1588 (2015)

View More...

Cited By

Optica participates in Crossref's Cited-By Linking service. Citing articles from Optica Publishing Group journals and other participating publishers are listed here.

Alert me when this article is cited.


Figures (3)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Schematic representation of the optical setups employed to measure the calibrated absorption of the specimens. In the insets, an electron micrograph of the sample and a 3D sketch of it.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 2
Fig. 2 (a) and (b) Measured and calculated absorption for the bare slab and the full-etched random pad. (c) and (d) Measured and calculated absorption for the bare slab and the shallow-etched random pad. In green the ideal absorption in absence of surface reflection (double-pass absorption)

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 3
Fig. 3 (a) Total (R, open squares), diffused (Rd, open circles) and directly backscattered reflection (Ro, open triangles) for the full-etched sample. The first is measured a 4 degrees incidence and the second at 0 degree incidence. The latter has been retrieved as difference between the previous two. (b) and (c) Measured absorption enhancement F for s- and p-polarization, respectively, for the full-etched sample in log-scale. (d) Integrated (over the probed spectral range) absorption enhancement iF for s- and p-polarization as a function of angle of incidence.

Download Full Size | PDF

Select as filters
Select Topics Cancel
Top
       
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Privacy | Terms of Use