Open AccessRole of surface recombination in affecting the efficiency of nanostructured thin-film solar cells
Author(s) -
Yun Da,
Yimin Xuan
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.21.0a1065
Subject(s) - materials science , plasmonic solar cell , optoelectronics , thin film , absorption (acoustics) , photoelectric effect , optics , solar cell efficiency , recombination , energy conversion efficiency , theory of solar cells , solar cell , polymer solar cell , nanotechnology , physics , chemistry , composite material , biochemistry , gene
Nanostructured light trapping is a promising way to improve the efficiency in thin-film solar cells recently. In this work, both the optical and electrical properties of thin-film solar cells with 1D periodic grating structure are investigated by using photoelectric coupling model. It is found that surface recombination plays a key role in determining the performance of nanostructured thin-film solar cells. Once the recombination effect is considered, the higher optical absorption does not mean the higher conversion efficiency as most existing publications claimed. Both the surface recombination velocity and geometric parameters of structure have great impact on the efficiency of thin-film solar cells. Our simulation results indicate that nanostructured light trapping will not only improve optical absorption but also boost the surface recombination simultaneously. Therefore, we must get the tradeoffs between optical absorption and surface recombination to obtain the maximum conversion efficiency. Our work makes it clear that both the optical absorption and electrical recombination response should be taken into account simultaneously in designing the nanostructured thin-film solar cells.