Performance enhancement of thin film silicon solar cells based on distributed Bragg reflector & diffraction grating

• Published in: AIP advances Vol. 4; no. 12; pp. 127121 - 127121-6
• Main Authors: Dubey, R. S., Saravanan, S., Kalainathan, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 01-12-2014; AIP Publishing LLC
• Subjects: ABSORPTION; Bilayers; Broadband; Circuits; DESIGN; DIFFRACTION; DIFFRACTION GRATINGS; EFFICIENCY; GRATINGS; Gratings (spectra); MATERIALS SCIENCE; Performance enhancement; Photovoltaic cells; Short circuit currents; SILICON SOLAR CELLS; Solar cells; THICKNESS; THIN FILMS
• ISSN: 2158-3226; 2158-3226
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4904218

The influence of various designing parameters were investigated and explored for high performance solar cells. Single layer grating based solar cell of 50 μm thickness gives maximum efficiency up to 24 % whereas same efficiency is achieved with the use of three bilayers grating based solar cell of 30 μm thickness. Remarkably, bilayer grating based solar cell design not only gives broadband absorption but also enhancement in efficiency with reduced cell thickness requirement. This absorption enhancement is attributed to the high reflection and diffraction from DBR and grating respectively. The obtained short-circuit current were 29.6, 32.9, 34.6 and 36.05 mA/cm2 of 5, 10, 20 and 30 μm cell thicknesses respectively. These presented designing efforts would be helpful to design and realize new generation of solar cells.