Enhanced photon management in silicon thin film solar cells with different front and back interface texture

Asman Tamang; Aswin Hongsingthong; Vladislav Jovanov; Porponth Sichanugrist; Bakhtiar A Khan; Rahul Dewan; Makoto Konagai; Dietmar Knipp

doi:10.1038/srep29639

Enhanced photon management in silicon thin film solar cells with different front and back interface texture

Sci Rep. 2016 Aug 2:6:29639. doi: 10.1038/srep29639.

Authors

Asman Tamang¹, Aswin Hongsingthong², Vladislav Jovanov¹, Porponth Sichanugrist², Bakhtiar A Khan¹, Rahul Dewan¹, Makoto Konagai^{2

3}, Dietmar Knipp¹

Affiliations

¹ Research Center for Functional Materials and Nanomolecular Science, Electronic Devices and Nanophotonics Laboratory, Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany.
² Department of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 152-8550, Japan.
³ Photovoltaics Research Center (PVREC), Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 158-0082, Japan.

Abstract

Light trapping and photon management of silicon thin film solar cells can be improved by a separate optimization of the front and back contact textures. A separate optimization of the front and back contact textures is investigated by optical simulations taking realistic device geometries into consideration. The optical simulations are confirmed by experimentally realized 1 μm thick microcrystalline silicon solar cells. The different front and back contact textures lead to an enhancement of the short circuit current by 1.2 mA/cm(2) resulting in a total short circuit current of 23.65 mA/cm(2) and an energy conversion efficiency of 8.35%.