Light-Trapping Electrode for the Efficiency Enhancement of Bifacial Perovskite Solar Cells

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 12; no. 18; p. 3210
• Main Authors: Obraztsova, Anna A., Barettin, Daniele, Furasova, Aleksandra D., Voroshilov, Pavel M., Auf der Maur, Matthias, Orsini, Andrea, Makarov, Sergey V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-09-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Circuits; dielectric nanospheres; Efficiency; Electric properties; Electrodes; Electromagnetic absorption; Energy conversion efficiency; Indium tin oxides; Light; light trapping; Magnetic fields; Nanospheres; Numerical analysis; Optical properties; Optimization; Perforated metals; Perovskite; perovskite solar cells; Perovskites; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Radiation; Short circuit currents; Short-circuit current; Solar batteries; Solar cells; Solar energy industry; Spheres; transparent conducting electrode; Trapping
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano12183210

Antireflection and light-trapping coatings are important parts of photovoltaic architectures, which enable the reduction of parasitic optical losses, and therefore increase the power conversion efficiency (PCE). Here, we propose a novel approach to enhance the efficiency of perovskite solar cells using a light-trapping electrode (LTE) with non-reciprocal optical transmission, consisting of a perforated metal film covered with a densely packed array of nanospheres. Our LTE combines charge collection and light trapping, and it can replace classical transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) such as ITO or FTO, providing better optical transmission and conductivity. One of the most promising applications of our original LTE is the optimization of efficient bifacial perovskite solar cells. We demonstrate that with our LTE, the short-circuit current density and fill factor are improved for both front and back illumination of the solar cells. Thus, we observe an 11% improvement in the light absorption for the monofacial PSCs, and a 15% for the bifacial PSCs. The best theoretical results of efficiency for our PSCs are 27.9% (monofacial) and 33.4% (bifacial). Our study opens new prospects for the further efficiency enhancement for perovskite solar cells.