Computational efficient RCWA method for simulation of thin film solar cells

This paper presents a new implementation of the Fourier modal method to solve the Maxwell equations in nanostructured optoelectronic solid state devices such as thin-film solar cells. The proposed algorithm is suitable for structures with arbitrary spatial variation of the permittivity and it is based on an improved and computationally efficient approach that does not involve the calculation of eigenvalues. The two-dimensional (2-D) numerical simulator has been applied to model the light propagation in a thin film amorphous silicon solar cell in order to analyze the dependence of conversion efficiency on the morphology of the internal interfaces.