Optical absorption enhancement in 3D silicon oxide nano-sandwich type solar cell

Amirkianoosh Kiani; Krishnan Venkatakrishnan; Bo Tan

doi:10.1364/OE.22.00A120

Optics Express
Vol. 22,
Issue S1,
pp. A120-A131
(2014)
•https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.22.00A120

Optical absorption enhancement in 3D silicon oxide nano-sandwich type solar cell

Amirkianoosh Kiani, Krishnan Venkatakrishnan, and Bo Tan

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Amirkianoosh Kiani, Krishnan Venkatakrishnan, and Bo Tan, "Optical absorption enhancement in 3D silicon oxide nano-sandwich type solar cell," Opt. Express 22, A120-A131 (2014)

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Abstract

Recent research in the field of photovoltaic and solar cell fabrication has shown the potential to significantly enhance light absorption in thin-film solar cells by using surface texturing and nanostructure coating techniques. In this paper, for the first time, we propose a new method for nano sandwich type thin-film solar cell fabrication by combining the laser amorphization (2nd solar cell generation) and laser nanofibers generation (3rd solar cell generation) techniques. In this novel technique, the crystalline silicon is irradiated by megahertz frequency femtosecond laser pulses under ambient conditions and the multi-layer of amorphorized silicon and nano fibrous layer are generated in the single-step on top of the silicon substrate. Light spectroscopy results show significant enhancement of light absorption in the generated multi layers solar cells (Silicon Oxide nanofibers / thin-film amorphorized silicon). This method is single step and no additional materials are added and both layers of the amorphorized thin-film silicon and three-dimensional (3D) silicon oxide nanofibrous structures are grown on top of the silicon substrate after laser irradiation. Finally, we suggest how to maximize the light trapping and optical absorption of the generated nanofibers/thin-film cells by optimizing the laser pulse duration.

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Fig. 1 Fabrication process.

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Fig. 2 SEM image of generated nanofibers layer induced by 1400 fs laser pulses at 15 W.

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Fig. 3 TEM image of non-gold-sputtered nanofibers.

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Fig. 4 TEM image of gold-sputtered nanofibers.

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Fig. 5 EDX results of generated nanofibers.

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Fig. 6 a) AFM analysis of phase change, b) micro-Raman results.

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Fig. 7 Light reflection spectroscopy results.

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Fig. 8 Light spectroscopy results of a) nano sandwich type and b) a-Si thin-film cells.

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Fig. 9 Computed results of non-dimensional temperature at different pulse width.

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Fig. 10 Non-dimensional temperature and light absorption at different pulse durations.

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Fig. 11 Light reflection of nano-sandwich vs. a-Si thin-film type at different pulse duration.

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Fig. 12 SEM images of cross-sectional view of generated nanofibrous layers at different pulse duration.

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Fig. 13 Nanofibers layer height and light reflection ration at different pulse duration.

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Tables (1)

Table 1 Computed results vs. experimental results

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Equations (10)

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\frac{1}{r} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} (r \frac{\partial T}{\partial r}) + \frac{\partial^{2} T}{\partial z^{2}} = \frac{1}{α} \frac{\partial T}{\partial t}

\frac{\partial T}{\partial z} |_{z = 0} = - \frac{1}{k} \frac{η P (t)}{π r_{0}^{2}} \exp (- r^{2} / r_{0}^{2})

\begin{array}{l} R = r / r_{0} \\ Z = z / r_{0} \\ θ = T / T_{r e f} \\ τ = 4 α t / r_{0}^{2} \end{array}

\frac{1}{R} \frac{\partial}{\partial R} (R \frac{\partial θ}{\partial R}) + \frac{\partial^{2} θ}{\partial Z^{2}} = 4 \frac{\partial θ}{\partial τ}

\frac{\partial θ}{\partial Z} |_{Z = 0} = - Q \exp (- R^{2}) [u (τ) - u (τ - τ_{p})]

θ (R, Z, τ) = \frac{Q}{2 \sqrt{π}} \int_{τ - τ {}_{p}}^{τ} I (v) d v

I (v) = (\frac{1}{1 + v}) \frac{1}{\sqrt{v}} \exp (- \frac{R^{2}}{1 + v} - \frac{Z^{2}}{v})

\begin{array}{l} θ (R, Z = 0, τ_{p}) \approx \frac{Q}{\sqrt{π}} \arctan (\sqrt{τ_{p}}) \exp (- R^{2}) \\ θ (R = 0, Z, τ_{p}) \approx \frac{Q}{\sqrt{π}} \arctan (\sqrt{τ_{p}}) - Q Z \end{array}

θ_{\max} (τ) = \frac{Q}{\sqrt{π}} [\arctan (π) - \arctan (\sqrt{τ - τ_{p}})]

θ (0, 0, τ) = \frac{Q}{\sqrt{π}} \sqrt{τ}

No.	Pulse duration (fs)	Power (W)	Non-dimensional pulse duration- $τ_{p}$	Non-dimensional power - Q	Non-dimensional temperature -Ѳ	Increase in light absorption at 630 nm (a.u.)
1	240	15	3.018 × 10⁻⁶	2.286	0.11635	1265
2	400	15	5.030 × 10⁻⁶	2.286	0.14288	2124
3	700	15	8.802 × 10⁻⁶	2.286	0.182256	2510
4	1400	15	17.604 × 10⁻⁶	2.286	0.214232	2756

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Equations (10)

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