Biomimetic spiral grating for stable and highly efficient absorption in crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) DivisionElectrical Engineering Program
Date
2017-09-12Online Publication Date
2017-09-12Print Publication Date
2017-10-02Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/625767
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
By emulating the phyllotaxis structure of natural plants, which has an efficient and stable light capture capability, a two-dimensional spiral grating is introduced on the surface of crystalline silicon solar cells to obtain both efficient and stable light absorption. Using the rigorous coupled wave analysis method, the absorption performance on structural parameter variations of spiral gratings is investigated firstly. Owing to diffraction resonance and excellent superficies antireflection, the integrated absorption of the optimal spiral grating cell is raised by about 77 percent compared with the conventional slab cell. Moreover, though a 15 percent deviation of structural parameters from the optimal spiral grating is applied, only a 5 percent decrease of the absorption is observed. This reveals that the performance of the proposed grating would tolerate large structural variations. Furthermore, the angular and polarization dependence on the absorption of the optimized cell is studied. For average polarizations, a small decrease of only 11 percent from the maximum absorption is observed within an incident angle ranging from −70 to 70 degrees. The results show promising application potentials of the biomimetic spiral grating in the solar cell.Citation
Hou J, Hong W, Li X, Yang C, Chen S (2017) Biomimetic spiral grating for stable and highly efficient absorption in crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells. Optics Express 25: A922. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/oe.25.00a922.Sponsors
National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (11504435, 11147014); Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2013CFA052); Baseline BAS/1/1664-01-01 from KAUST.Publisher
The Optical SocietyJournal
Optics ExpressAdditional Links
https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-25-20-A922ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1364/oe.25.00a922