Enhancing the absorption of thin‐film microcrystalline silicon solar cells over a broadband range in order to improve the energy conversion efficiency is a very important challenge in the development of low cost and stable solar energy harvesting. Here, we demonstrate that a broadband enhancement of the absorption can be achieved by creating a large number of resonant modes associated with two‐dimensional photonic crystal band edges. We utilize higher‐order optical modes perpendicular to the silicon layer, as well as the band‐folding effect by employing photonic crystal superlattice structures. We establish a method to incorporate photonic crystal structures into thin‐film (~500 nm) microcrystalline silicon photovoltaic layers while suppressing undesired defects formed in the microcrystalline silicon. The fabricated solar cells exhibit 1.3 times increase of a short circuit current density (from 15.0 mA/cm 2 to 19.6 mA/cm 2 ) by introducing the photonic crystal structure, and consequently the conversion efficiency increases from 5.6% to 6.8%. Moreover, we theoretically analyze the absorption characteristics in the fabricated cell structure, and reveal that the energy conversion efficiency can be increased beyond 9.5% in a structure less than 1/400 as thick as conventional crystalline silicon solar cells with an efficiency of 24%. © 2015 The Authors. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. We demonstrate that a broadband enhancement of the absorption in thin‐film (~500 nm) microcrystalline silicon solar cells can be achieved by creating a large number of resonant modes associated with two‐dimensional photonic crystal band edges. The fabricated solar cells exhibit 1.3 times increase of a short circuit current density (from 15.0 mA/cm 2 to 19.6 mA/cm 2 ) by introducing the photonic crystal structure, and consequently the conversion efficiency increases from 5.6% to 6.8%. Moreover, we theoretically analyze the absorption characteristics in the fabricated cell structure, and reveal that the energy conversion efficiency can be increased beyond 9.5% in a thin (~500 nm) microcrystalline silicon layer.


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    Title :

    Photonic crystal microcrystalline silicon solar cells



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2015




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    BKL:    53.36 Energiedirektumwandler, elektrische Energiespeicher