TY - GEN
T1 - Revisiting light trapping in silicon solar cells with random pyramids
AU - Manzoor, Salman
AU - Filipic, Miha
AU - Topic, Marko
AU - Holman, Zachary
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2016/11/18
Y1 - 2016/11/18
N2 - Random pyramids are the most widely used texture in monocrystalline silicon solar cells for reducing front-surface reflection and trapping weakly absorbed light. In prior efforts to evaluate the light-trapping performance of random pyramids through optical simulations, the base angle of the pyramids was assumed to be 54.7°, as is expected from the orientation of the crystallographic planes. In this contribution, we benchmark the light-trapping capability of real random pyramids - which have a distribution of base angles - against both ideal, 54.7° random pyramids, and a Lambertian scatterer. We do so by calculating the path length enhancement and fraction of rays remaining trapped as a function of passes through the wafer, and this information is used to calculate short-circuit current density as a function of wafer thickness. Interestingly, the excellent performance of real random pyramids - they are close to Lambertian - arises precisely because they are imperfect and have a distribution of angles.
AB - Random pyramids are the most widely used texture in monocrystalline silicon solar cells for reducing front-surface reflection and trapping weakly absorbed light. In prior efforts to evaluate the light-trapping performance of random pyramids through optical simulations, the base angle of the pyramids was assumed to be 54.7°, as is expected from the orientation of the crystallographic planes. In this contribution, we benchmark the light-trapping capability of real random pyramids - which have a distribution of base angles - against both ideal, 54.7° random pyramids, and a Lambertian scatterer. We do so by calculating the path length enhancement and fraction of rays remaining trapped as a function of passes through the wafer, and this information is used to calculate short-circuit current density as a function of wafer thickness. Interestingly, the excellent performance of real random pyramids - they are close to Lambertian - arises precisely because they are imperfect and have a distribution of angles.
KW - atomic force microscopy
KW - light trapping
KW - photovoltaic cells
KW - ray tracing
KW - silicon
KW - surface morphology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85003758545&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85003758545&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/PVSC.2016.7750201
DO - 10.1109/PVSC.2016.7750201
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85003758545
T3 - Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference
SP - 2952
EP - 2954
BT - 2016 IEEE 43rd Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2016
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 43rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2016
Y2 - 5 June 2016 through 10 June 2016
ER -