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Lambertian matched absorption enhancement in PECVD poly‐Si thin film on aluminum induced textured glass superstrates for solar cell applications
Author(s) -
Jin Guangyao,
Widenborg Per I.,
Campbell Patrick,
Varlamov Sergey
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/pip.981
Subject(s) - materials science , optics , silicon , thin film , optoelectronics , absorption (acoustics) , evaporation , solar cell , sputter deposition , sputtering , composite material , nanotechnology , physics , thermodynamics
This paper examines the effectiveness of a range of aluminum induced textured (AIT) glass topographies at enhancing light absorption in silicon thin film diode structures deposited on the textured glass side, operating in the superstrate configuration. The aluminum layer used to produce the AIT can be deposited either by thermal evaporation or magnetron sputtering. Varying AIT process parameters produces a wide range of feature roughness and uniformity, providing scope to optimize texture effectiveness and process repeatability. We report strong correlation between the degree of absorption enhancement from these textures and both dark field microscope images of the AIT glass and reduction of the interference envelope in spectral reflectance of the deposited silicon films. Our findings corroborate earlier modeling work based on ray tracing, which predicted that the best enhancement occurs when the feature size is close to the film thickness. In this paper we investigate AIT samples in the 1 – 3 µm film thickness range, some of which trap light in silicon as strongly as at the Lambertian limit. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.