Lightwave trapping in thin film solar cells with improved photonic-structured front contacts

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (21) ◽  
pp. 6456-6464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olalla Sanchez-Sobrado ◽  
Manuel J. Mendes ◽  
Sirazul Haque ◽  
Tiago Mateus ◽  
Hugo Aguas ◽  
...  

Solar cell patterned with photonic elements on the front transparent contact. The photocurrent generated is boosted in a wide spectral incidence range.

2011 ◽  
Vol 1327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Won Kang ◽  
Jong Seok Woo ◽  
Sung Hwan Choi ◽  
Seung Yoon Lee ◽  
Heon Min. Lee ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTWe have propsed MgO/AZO bi-layer transparent conducting oxide (TCO) for thin film solar cells. From XRD analysis, it was observed that the full width at half maximum of AZO decreased when it was grown on MgO precursor. The Hall mobility of MgO/AZO bi-layer was 17.5cm2/Vs, whereas that of AZO was 20.8cm2/Vs. These indicated that the crystallinity of AZO decreased by employing MgO precursor. However, the haze (=total diffusive transmittance/total transmittance) characteristics of highly crystalline AZO was significantly improved by MgO precursor. The average haze in the visible region increased from 14.3 to 48.2%, and that in the NIR region increased from 6.3 to 18.9%. The reflectance of microcrystalline silicon solar cell was decreased and external quantum efficiency was significantly improved by applying MgO/AZO bi-layer TCO. The efficiency of microcrystalline silicon solar cell with MgO/AZO bi-layer front TCO was 6.66%, whereas the efficiency of one with AZO single TCO was 5.19%.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 041602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Powalla ◽  
Stefan Paetel ◽  
Erik Ahlswede ◽  
Roland Wuerz ◽  
Cordula D. Wessendorf ◽  
...  

RSC Advances ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 6562-6570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Qin Zeng ◽  
Yan Qing Lai ◽  
Zi Li Han ◽  
Boon K. Ng ◽  
Zhi An Zhang ◽  
...  

A CZTSSe thin film solar cell was fabricated by a sol–gel method with an efficiency of 8.08%.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 4323-4332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyujin Kim ◽  
Inhyuk Kim ◽  
Yunjung Oh ◽  
Daehee Lee ◽  
Kyoohee Woo ◽  
...  

A Cu2ZnSnS4 solar cell with an efficiency of 8.17% was fabricated using a non-toxic solvent-based hybrid-ink without the involvement of a complex synthesis, toxic solvents or harmful post-selenization.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-533
Author(s):  
Mohsen Sajadnia ◽  
Sajjad Dehghani ◽  
Zahra Noraeepoor ◽  
Mohammad Hossein Sheikhi

Purpose The purpose of this study is to design and optimize copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells. Design/methodology/approach A novel bi-layer CIGS thin film solar cell based on SnS is designed. To improve the performance of the CIGS based thin film solar cell a tin sulfide (SnS) layer is added to the structure, as back surface field and second absorbing layer. Defect recombination centers have a significant effect on the performance of CIGS solar cells by changing recombination rate and charge density. Therefore, performance of the proposed structure is investigated in two stages successively, considering typical and maximum reported trap density for both CIGS and SnS. To achieve valid results, the authors use previously reported experimental parameters in the simulations. Findings First by considering the typical reported trap density for both SnS and CIGS, high efficiency of 36%, was obtained. Afterward maximum reported trap densities of 1 × 1019 and 5.6 × 1015 cm−3 were considered for SnS and CIGS, respectively. The efficiency of the optimized cell is 27.17% which is achieved in CIGS and SnS thicknesses of cell are 0.3 and 0.1 µm, respectively. Therefore, even in this case, the obtained efficiency is well greater than previous structures while the absorbing layer thickness is low. Originality/value Having results similar to practical CIGS solar cells, the impact of the defects of SnS and CIGS layers was investigated. It was found that affixing SnS between CIGS and Mo layers causes a significant improvement in the efficiency of CIGS thin-film solar cell.


RSC Advances ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (59) ◽  
pp. 34207-34213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qandeel Rehman ◽  
Aimal Daud Khan ◽  
Adnan Daud Khan ◽  
Muhammad Noman ◽  
Haider Ali ◽  
...  

Improving the photon absorption in thin-film solar cells with plasmonic nanoparticles is essential for the realization of extremely efficient cells with substantial cost reduction.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongtao Cui ◽  
Xiaolei Liu ◽  
Xiaojing Hao ◽  
Fangyang Liu ◽  
Ning Song ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe focus of this work is on back contact improvement for sputtered CZTS thin film solar cells. Three methods have been investigated including a thin Ag coating, a thin ZnO coating on the Mo back contact and rapid thermal annealing of the back contact. All of these methods have been found to reduce defects such as voids as well as secondary phases at the back contact region and inhibit the formation of MoS2. Consequently all the mothods effectively enhances Voc, Jsc, FF and therefore efficiency significantly.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 3939-3942
Author(s):  
Nikhil Deep Gupta

The paper discusses and compares the Lambertian limits for light trapping (LT) in GaAs active layer based thin film solar cells as described by different mathematical theories and expressions. The Lambertian limits for thin film GaAs solar cell provide the maximum efficiency that can be achieved through LT structures and also indicate the advantage that these structure can provide for the design of GaAs thin film solar cell structure. The purpose to discuss difference Lambertian limit expressions is to understand and predict, which limiting benchmark value is more suited for nano LT structures based GaAs active material solar cells, considering GaAs material properties. The paper also compares these calculated limiting values with different nano LT structures including photonic crystal structures based designs proposed by the author. The aim is to check how much close a particular proposed structure is to the Lambertian values, so that we can predict that which is more suitable design to get best efficiency out of the single junction GaAs material based structure. The paper discussed the three Lambertian theories including that of Yablonovitch, Green and Schuster.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 1269-1275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingwen Tian ◽  
Lijian Huang ◽  
Wangen Zhao ◽  
Yanchun Yang ◽  
Gang Wang ◽  
...  

An aqueous solution deposited Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cell with a photoelectric conversion of 6.62% was fabricated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 2700-2707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nima Khoshsirat ◽  
Fawad Ali ◽  
Vincent Tiing Tiong ◽  
Mojtaba Amjadipour ◽  
Hongxia Wang ◽  
...  

Molybdenum (Mo) is the most commonly used material as back contact in thin-film solar cells. Adhesion of Mo film to soda–lime glass (SLG) substrate is crucial to the performance of solar cells. In this study, an optimized bilayer structure made of a thin layer of Mo on an ultra-thin chromium (Cr) adhesion layer is used as the back contact for a copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) thin-film solar cell on a SLG substrate. DC magnetron sputtering is used for deposition of Mo and Cr films. The conductivity of Mo/Cr bilayer films, their microstructure and surface morphology are studied at different deposition powers and working pressures. Good adhesion to the SLG substrate has been achieved by means of an ultra-thin Cr layer under the Mo layer. By optimizing the deposition conditions we achieved low surface roughness, high optical reflectance and low sheet resistivity while we could decrease the back contact thickness to 600 nm. That is two thirds to half of the thickness that is currently being used for bilayer and single layer back contact for thin-film solar cells. We demonstrate the excellent properties of Mo/Cr bilayer as back contact of a CZTS solar cell.


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