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Solar cell efficiency enhancement via light trapping in printable resonant dielectric nanosphere arrays
Author(s) -
Grandidier Jonathan,
Weitekamp Raymond A.,
Deceglie Michael G.,
Callahan Dennis M.,
Battaglia Corsin,
Bukowsky Colton R.,
Ballif Christophe,
Grubbs Robert H.,
Atwater Harry A.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.201228690
Subject(s) - materials science , optoelectronics , dielectric , amorphous silicon , solar cell , monolayer , coating , photonic crystal , plasmonic solar cell , silicon , nanotechnology , crystalline silicon , polymer solar cell
Resonant dielectric structures are a promising platform for addressing the key challenge of light trapping in thin‐film solar cells. We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate efficiency enhancements in solar cells from dielectric nanosphere arrays. Two distinct amorphous silicon photovoltaic architectures were improved using this versatile light‐trapping platform. In one structure, the colloidal monolayer couples light into the absorber in the near‐field acting as a photonic crystal light‐trapping element. In the other, it acts in the far‐field as a graded index antireflection coating to further improve a cell which already included a state‐of‐the‐art random light‐trapping texture to achieve a conversion efficiency over 11%. For the near‐field flat cell architecture, we directly fabricated the colloidal monolayer on the device through Langmuir–Blodgett deposition in a scalable process that does not degrade the active material. In addition, we present a novel transfer printing method, which utilizes chemical crosslinking of an optically thin adhesion layer to tether sphere arrays to the device surface. The minimally invasive processing conditions of this transfer method enable the application to a wide range of solar cells and other optoelectronic devices.False‐color SEM image of an amorphous silicon solar cell with resonant spheres on top.