Simulation and modelling of photonic and plasmonic crystal back reflectors for efficient light trapping

✍ Scribed by Biswas, Rana ;Zhou, Dayu

• Book ID: 105365728
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 450 KB
• Volume: 207
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/pssa.200982855

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

We design photonic crystal back reflectors for thin film a‐Si:H solar cells that maximize the absorption of photons within the absorber layer. Rigorous scattering matrix (S‐matrix) simulation approaches are used where Maxwell's equations are rigorously solved for the layered solar cell structure. Metallic photonic crystals consisting of hole arrays as well as metallic pyramidal arrays are considered. Simulations predict an optimum lattice spacing between 700 and 750 nm and an increase in absorption of ∼10%. The metallic photonic crystals strongly diffract light within the absorber layer, and are very effective in harvesting weakly absorbing photons with energies just above the band edge.