Design of a high efficiency solar cell with lossless nanoentities atop and embedded in silicon substrate Design of a high efficiency solar cell with lossless nanoentities atop and embedded in silicon substrate (original) (raw)

Use of lossless nanoentities (dielectric nanoparticles/voids) atop and embedded in a silicon substrate has been investigated for obtaining high efficiency silicon solar cells. Dielectric nanoparticles atop silicon help in grading the refractive index mismatch between single antireflection layer coated silicon and air, maximizing the photon injection. Thereafter, nanoentities embedded inside the silicon enhance the absorption of these injected photons by large angular scattering resulting in light trapping. Design guidelines are laid down for maximized injection and enhanced absorption of the incident photons. Optical simulations are carried out using Lumerical FDTD Solutions R . Results of optical simulations are mapped onto the electrical model of a solar cell considering the changes in electrical properties of the emitter layer by embedded nanoentities to estimate the efficiency of the solar cell. It is seen that a relative improvement in efficiency of about 6% is obtained when 200 nm radius voids having 30% coverage are embedded in a 20 µm thick solar cell, with an antireflection coating of 60 nm thick titania bottom layer, and 50 nm radius silicon nitride nanoparticles having 78% coverage as the top layer. This improvement in efficiency is attributed to the enhanced quantum efficiency, which is found to be pronounced in thinner cells (25% for a thin cell 2 µm thick).

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact