Improving the efficiency of thin film tandem solar cells by plasmonic intermediate reflectors

Thin film tandem solar cells made of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon provide renewable energy at the benefit of low material consumption. As a drawback, these materials do not posses the high carrier mobilities of their crystalline counterpart which limits the feasible material thickness. For maintaining the light absorption as high as possible, photon management is required. Here we show that metallic nanodiscs that sustain localized plasmon polaritons can increase the efficiency of such solar cells if they are incorporated into the dielectric intermediate reflector separating the top and the bottom cell. We provide quantitative estimates for the possible absorption enhancement of optimized bi-periodic nanodiscs that are feasible for fabrication. Emphasis is also put on discussing the impact of obliquely incident sun light on the solar cell performance.     

基于阳极氧化铝纳米光栅的薄膜硅太阳能电池双重陷光结构设计与仿真

本文提出了表面和底部均带有阳极氧化铝(AAO)纳米光栅的薄膜硅太阳能电池双重陷光结构,利用FDTD软件仿真研究了AAO纳米光栅的周期、厚度和占空比对薄膜硅太阳能电池短路电流密度的影响,并对AAO结构参数进行了优化.仿真结果表明,表面AAO最佳结构参数是周期440 nm,厚度75 nm,占空比0.5,底部AAO最佳结构参数是周期380 nm,厚度90 nm,占空比为0.75.双重AAO组合陷光结构可有效增加薄膜硅太阳能电池在280—1100 nm范围内的光吸收,吸收相对增强可以达到74.44%.     

Enhancing light absorption for organic solar cells using front ITO nanograting and back ultrathin Al layer

To address the discrepancy between carrier collection and light absorption of organic solar cells caused by the limited carrier mobility and optical absorption coefficient for the normally employed organic photoactive layers, a light management structure composed of a front indium tin oxide(ITO) nanograting and ultrathin Al layer inserted in between the photoactive layer and the electron transport layer(ETL) is introduced. Owing to the antireflection and light scattering induced by the ITO nanograting and the suppression of light absorption in the ETL by the inserted Al layer, the light absorption of the photoactive layer is significantly enhanced in a spectral range from 400 nm to 650 nm that also covers the main energy region of solar irradiation for the normally employed active materials such as the P3HT:PC_(61) BM blend. The simulation results indicate that comparing with the control device with a planar configuration of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PC_(61) BM(80-nm thick)/Zn O/Al, the short-circuit current density and power conversion efficiency of the optimized light management structure can be improved by 32.86% and 34.46%. Moreover, good omnidirectional light management is observed for the proposed device structure. Owing to the fact that the light management structure possesses the simple structure and excellent performance, the exploration of such a structure can be believed to be significant in fabricating the thin film-based optoelectronic devices.     

Absorption enhancement of thin film solar cells using back binary metallic grating

We reported in this work that light absorption can be significantly enhanced in an a-Si thin film solar cell with a nano binary metallic grating patterned on the bottom side. The enhancement is mainly due to combination of several kinds of optical modes. Cavity mode, at the transverse and longitudinal cavities and surface plasmon mode, propagating along the interface of silicon and silver are the main modes contributing to the enhancement. Some key parameters including grating period, width, height and active layer thickness are optimized. The integrated absorption rate of the optimized system reaches 76.55 % for the wavelength range from 300 to 950 nm under AM1.5G spectrum.     

Cu-Co共掺杂ZnO光电性质的第一性原理计算

采用密度泛函理论框架下的第一性原理平面波超软赝势方法,计算了本征ZnO,Cu 1021cm-3单掺杂ZnO,Co单掺杂ZnO,Cu-Co共掺杂ZnO的电子结构和光学性质.结果表明,在本文掺杂浓度数量级下,Cu,Co单掺杂可以提高ZnO的载流子浓度,从而改善ZnO的导电性,Cu-Co共掺杂时ZnO半导体进入简并状态,呈现金属性.这三种掺杂ZnO均会在可见光和近紫外区域出现光吸收增强现象,其中由于Cu离子与Co离子之间的协同效应,Cu-Co共掺杂ZnO对太阳光的吸收大幅增加,因此Cu-Co共掺杂ZnO可以用于制备高效率的太阳电池.     

In_2O_3:Sn中间层改善B掺杂ZnO薄膜的性能及其应用研究

金属有机化学气相沉积(MOCVD)法生长的掺硼氧化锌(BZO)薄膜,具有天然的"类金字塔"绒面结构,作为硅基薄膜太阳电池的前电极具有良好的陷光效果.但直接获得的BZO薄膜表面形貌过于尖锐,影响后续硅基薄膜材料生长质量及太阳电池的光电转换效率.本文设计了以一层超薄In2O3:Sn(ITO)薄膜(～4 nm厚度)作为中间层的多层膜,并通过对顶层BZO薄膜的厚度调制,改善BZO薄膜的表面特性,薄膜结构为:glass/底层BZO/ITO/顶层BZO.合适厚度的顶层BZO薄膜有助于获得类似"菜花状"形貌特征,尖锐的表面趋于"柔和",而较厚的顶层BZO薄膜仍然保持"类金字塔状"结构."柔和"的BZO薄膜表面结构有助于提高后续生长薄膜电池的结晶质量.将获得的新型"三明治"结构多层膜应用于p-i-n型氢化微晶硅(μc-Si:H)薄膜太阳电池,相比传统的BZO薄膜,电池的量子效率QE在500—800 nm波长范围提高了～10%,并且电池的Jsc和Voc均有所提高.     

Design of periodic metal-insulator-metal waveguide back structures for the enhancement of light absorption in thin-film solar cells

To increase the absorption in a thin layer of absorbing material (amorphous silicon, a-Si), a light trapping design is presented. The designed structure incorporates periodic metal-insulator-metal waveguides to enhance the optical path length of light within the solar cells. The new design can result in broadband optical absorption enhancement not only for transverse magnetic (TM)-polarized light, but also for transverse electric (TE)-polarized light. No plasmonic modes can be excited in TE-polarization, but because of the coupling into the a-Si planar waveguide guiding modes and the diffraction of light by the bottom periodic structures into higher diffraction orders, the total absorption in the active region is also increased. The results from rigorous coupled wave analysis show that the overall optical absorption in the active layer can be greatly enhanced by up to 40%. The designed structures presented in this paper can be integrated with back contact technology to potentially produce high-efficiency thin-film solar cell devices.     

纳米表面二维周期半圆凹槽增强硅薄膜太阳能电池光吸收

利用时域有限差分方法, 研究硅薄膜上下表面周期半圆凹槽结构对于太阳光吸收的增强效应. 研究发现这种结构可以实现太阳光宽波段的光吸收增强, 通过调节SiO₂表面减反层厚度和凹槽半径长度来实现薄膜太阳能电池最大的光吸收, 并实现了波长在300-1000 nm范围的太阳光吸收总能量比没有这种 结构下硅薄膜光吸收提高了约117%. 关键词： 硅薄膜 半圆凹槽 吸收增强     

Plasmonic fractals: ultrabroadband light trapping in thin film solar cells by a Sierpinski nanocarpet

Plasmonic Sierpinski nanocarpet as back structure for a thin film Si solar cell is investigated. We demonstrate that ultra-broadband light trapping can be obtained by placing square metallic nanoridges with Sierpinski pattern on the back contact of the thin film solar cell. The multiple-scale plasmonic fractal structure allows excitation of localized surface plasmons and surface plasmon polaritons in multiple wavelengths leading to obvious absorption enhancements in a wide frequency range. Full wave simulations show that 109 % increase of the short-circuit current density for a 200 nm thick solar cell, is achievable by the proposed fractal back structure. The amount of light absorbed in the active region of this cell is more than that of a flat cell with semiconductor thickness of 1,000 nm.     

Role of surface metal nanoparticles on the absorption in solar cells

The effect of absorption enhancement with metallic nanoparticles on solar cell surfaces is often confused with various optical processes. In this work, the effective absorption rates in the active materials of solar cells are explicitly calculated including all possible factors. The results show that, although the total absorption is highly enhanced in general, the effective absorption in the active region is not much enhanced and even strongly reduced in the blue-violet regime. As the solar spectrum is considered, the integrated absorbed power in the solar cell materials is shown to be similar for structures with or without metallic nanoparticles.