Efficient Light Management in a Monolithic Tandem Perovskite/Silicon Solar Cell by Using a Hybrid Metasurface

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2019 May 23;9(5):791. doi: 10.3390/nano9050791.

Abstract

Solar energy is now dealing with the challenge of overcoming the Shockley-Queisser limit of single bandgap solar cells. Multilayer solar cells are a promising solution as the so-called third generation of solar cells. The combination of materials with different bandgap energies in multijunction cells enables power conversion efficiencies up to 30% at reasonable costs. However, interfaces between different layers are critical due to optical losses. In this work, we propose a hybrid metasurface in a monolithic perovskite-silicon solar cell. The design takes advantage of light management to optimize the absorption in the perovskite, as well as an efficient light guiding towards the silicon subcell. Furthermore, we have also included the effect of a textured back contact. The optimum proposal provides an enhancement of the matched short-circuit current density of a 20.5% respect to the used planar reference.

Keywords: metasurface; monolithic tandem solar cell; numerical optimization; perovskite solar cell; short-circuit current.