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All‐Angle Invisibility Cloaking of Contact Fingers on Solar Cells by Refractive Free‐Form Surfaces
Author(s) -
Schumann Martin F.,
Langenhorst Malte,
Smeets Michael,
Ding Kaining,
Paetzold Ulrich W.,
Wegener Martin
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
advanced optical materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.89
H-Index - 91
ISSN - 2195-1071
DOI - 10.1002/adom.201700164
Subject(s) - cloaking , materials science , solar cell , optoelectronics , optics , polymer solar cell , silicon , energy conversion efficiency , photonics , metamaterial , physics
This work demonstrates a performance improvement of state‐of‐the‐art silicon solar cells by cloaking their metal contact fingers. The cloaking free‐form surfaces are fabricated on silicon heterojunction solar cells using direct laser writing of polymers and subsequent soft imprinting. Cloaking performance is determined experimentally by measuring spatially resolved and angle‐resolved current generation and the spectral response of the cell. The short‐circuit current density of the cell increases by 7.3%; its power‐conversion efficiency is enhanced by 9.3%. Overcompensation of the shadowing loss is found to be caused by improved light‐gathering and light‐trapping in the polymer layer. The experimental findings are in good agreement to ray‐tracing simulations.