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Doubling the Near‐Infrared Photocurrent in a Solar Cell via Omni‐Resonant Coherent Perfect Absorption
Author(s) -
Villinger Massimo L.,
Shiri Abbas,
Shabahang Soroush,
Jahromi Ali K.,
Nasr Magued B.,
Villinger Christopher H.,
Abouraddy Ayman F.
Publication year - 2021
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.202001107
Subject(s) - materials science , optoelectronics , photocurrent , optics , absorption (acoustics) , amorphous silicon , metamaterial , solar cell , polarizer , crystalline silicon , physics , composite material , birefringence
Minimizing the material usage in thin‐film solar cells can reduce manufacturing costs and enable mechanically flexible implementations, but concomitantly diminishes optical absorption. Coherent optical effects can help alleviate this inevitable drawback at discrete frequencies. For example, coherent perfect absorption guarantees that light is fully absorbed in a thin layer regardless of material or thickness—but only on resonance. Here, it is shown that “omni‐resonance” delivers such coherent enhancement over a broad bandwidth by structuring the optical field to nullify the angular dispersion intrinsic to resonant structures. After embedding an amorphous‐silicon thin‐film photovoltaic cell in a planar cavity, pre‐conditioning the incident light using an alignment‐free optical arrangement severs the link between the resonant bandwidth and the cavity‐photon lifetime, thereby rendering the cavity omni‐resonant. Coherently enhanced near‐infrared absorption doubles the photocurrent over the targeted spectral range 660–740 nm where every wavelength resonates. These results may pave the way to transparent solar cells that optimally harvest near‐infrared light.