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Applied Physics Letters / Volume 95 / Issue 23 / LASERS, OPTICS, AND OPTOELECTRONICS

Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 231102 (2009); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3269593 (3 pages)

Photonic crystal based back reflectors for light management and enhanced absorption in amorphous silicon solar cells

Benjamin Curtin1, Rana Biswas1,2, and Vikram Dalal1

1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Microelectronics Research Center, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA

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(Received 24 July 2009; accepted 7 November 2009; published online 7 December 2009)

Photonic crystal back-reflectors offer enhanced optical absorption in thin-film solar cells, without undesirable losses. We fabricated metallic photonic crystal back-reflectors using photolithography and reactive-ion etching and deposited a-Si:H solar cells. The photonic crystal has triangular lattice symmetry, a pitch of 760 nm, and was designed with rigorous simulations. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrates excellent long range periodicity and conformal a-Si:H growth. The average light absorption increases by 7%, relative to a flat reference device, with an enhancement factor approaching 6 at near-infrared wavelengths. The photonic crystal back reflector strongly diffracts light and increases optical path lengths of solar photons.

© 2009 American Institute of Physics

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors, elemental semiconductors, light absorption, light diffraction, photolithography, photonic crystals, scanning electron microscopy, silicon, solar cells

PACS

  • 88.40.J-

    Types of solar cells

  • 42.70.Qs

    Photonic bandgap materials

  • 78.67.Pt

    Multilayers; superlattices; photonic structures; metamaterials

  • 81.16.Nd

    Micro- and nanolithography

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3269593

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0003-6951 (print)  
1077-3118 (online)

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Institute of Physics

For access to fully linked references, you need to log in.
    A. S. Ferlauto, G. M. Ferreira, J. M. Pearce, C. R. Wronski, R. W. Collins, X. Deng, and G. Ganguly, J. Appl. Phys. 92, 2424 (2002)JAPIAU000092000005002424000001.

    D. Zhou and R. Biswas, J. Appl. Phys. 103, 093102 (2008)JAPIAU000103000009093102000001.

    L. Zeng, P. Bermel, Y. Yi, B. A. Alamariu, K. A. Broderick, J. Liu, C. Hong, X. Duan, J. Joannopoulos, and L. C. Kimerling, Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 221105 (2008)APPLAB000093000022221105000001.

    J. Springer, A. Poruba, L. Mullerova, M. Vanecek, O. Kluth, and B. Rech, J. Appl. Phys. 95, 1427 (2004)JAPIAU000095000003001427000001.

    K. Catchpole and M. Green, J. Appl. Phys. 101, 063105 (2007)JAPIAU000101000006063105000001.

    R. Biswas, C. G. Ding, I. Puscasu, M. Pralle, M. McNeal, J. Daly, A. Greenwald, and E. Johnson, Phys. Rev. B 74, 045107 (2006).


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