Open AccessTheoretical study of pyramid sizes and scattering effects in silicon photovoltaic module stacks
Author(s) -
Oliver Höhn,
Nico Tucher,
Bénédikt Bläsi
Publication year - 2018
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.26.00a320
Subject(s) - optics , monocrystalline silicon , stack (abstract data type) , wafer , materials science , photovoltaic system , scattering , reflector (photography) , silicon , optoelectronics , pyramid (geometry) , reflection (computer programming) , absorption (acoustics) , crystalline silicon , solar cell , physics , light source , computer science , electrical engineering , engineering , programming language
Front side pyramids are the industrial standard for wafer based monocrystalline silicon solar cells. These pyramids fulfill two tasks: They act as anti-reflective structure on the one hand and as a light-trapping structure on the other hand. In recent development smaller pyramids with sizes below 1 µm attract more and more interest. In this paper an optical analysis of periodically arranged front side pyramids is performed. The impact on the reflectance as well as on the useful absorption within the solar cell is investigated depending on the pyramids size, the amount of additional scattering in the system and the quality of the rear side reflector. In contrast to other investigations not only the solar cell, but the full photovoltaic (PV) module stack is considered. This can strongly influence results, as we show in this paper. The results indicate that in a PV module stack with realistic assumptions for the amount of scattering as well as for the rear side reflectance only small differences for pyramids with sizes above 600 nm occur. Preliminary conclusions for random pyramids deduced from these results for periodically arranged pyramids indicate that these differences could become even smaller.