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research article

Understanding of photocurrent enhancement in real thin film solar cells: towards optimal onedimensional gratings

Naqavi, Ali  
•
Söderström, Karin  
•
Paeder, Vincent  
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2011
Optics Express

Despite the progress in the engineering of structures to enhance photocurrent in thin film solar cells, there are few comprehensive studies which provide general and intuitive insight into the problem of light trapping. Also, lack of theoretical propositions which are consistent with fabrication is an issue to be improved. We investigate a real thin film solar cell with almost conformal layers grown on a 1D grating metallic backreflector both experimentally and theoretically. Photocurrent increase is observed as an outcome of guided mode excitation in both theory and experiment by obtaining the external quantum efficiency of the cell for different angles of incidence and in both polarization directions. Finally, the effect of geometrical parameters on the short circuit current density of the device is investigated by considering different substrate shapes that are compatible with solar cell fabrication. Based on our simulations, among the investigated shapes, triangular gratings with a very sharp slope in one side, so called sawtooth gratings, are the most promising 1D gratings for optimal light trapping.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1364/OE.19.000128
Web of Science ID

WOS:000285915300023

Author(s)
Naqavi, Ali  
Söderström, Karin  
Paeder, Vincent  
Scharf, Toralf  
Herzig, Hans Peter  
Ballif, Christophe  
Date Issued

2011

Publisher

Optical Society of America

Published in
Optics Express
Volume

19

Issue

1

Start page

128

End page

140

Subjects

Photovoltaic

•

Diffraction gratings

•

Computational electromagnetic methods

Note

IMT-NE Number: 589

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

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Available on Infoscience
January 6, 2011
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/62780
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