Issue 10, 2013

Performance enhancement of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells with low cost nanodent plasmonic substrates

Abstract

Performance of thin film photovoltaics largely relies on photon absorption capability. Here, we introduce a novel substrate with patterned aluminum nanodent arrays with unique light management capability. Hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film solar cells have been fabricated on the nano-texturized substrate for optical property study and photovoltaic performance evaluation. Our measurements have shown significant enhancement on broadband light absorption using these patterned substrates via both geometrical light trapping and plasmonic coupling. Particularly, the enhancement factor reaches as high as 5–30 times at wavelength near the band edge. Numerical simulations confirm the measurements and uncover the mechanisms of the enhancement. More importantly, photovoltaic measurements on nanodent solar cells present improvements of over 31% and 27% in short circuit current and energy conversion efficiency respectively compared with planar solar cells. Therefore, the novel patterned substrates are promising candidates for low cost and high performance thin film solar cells.

Graphical abstract: Performance enhancement of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells with low cost nanodent plasmonic substrates

Supplementary files

Additions and corrections

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Apr 2013
Accepted
05 Jun 2013
First published
05 Jun 2013

Energy Environ. Sci., 2013,6, 2965-2971

Performance enhancement of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells with low cost nanodent plasmonic substrates

H. Huang, L. Lu, J. Wang, J. Yang, S. Leung, Y. Wang, D. Chen, X. Chen, G. Shen, D. Li and Z. Fan, Energy Environ. Sci., 2013, 6, 2965 DOI: 10.1039/C3EE41139G

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