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Approaching the Lambertian Limit in Randomly Textured Thin-Film Solar Cells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2012

Falk Lederer,
Stephan Fahr,
Carsten Rockstuhl and
Thomas Kirchartz
Falk Lederer
Affiliation:
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Institute of Condensed Matter Theory and Solid State Optics and Abbe Center of Photonics, Max-Wien-Platz 1, 07743 Jena, Germany
Stephan Fahr
Affiliation:
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Institute of Condensed Matter Theory and Solid State Optics and Abbe Center of Photonics, Max-Wien-Platz 1, 07743 Jena, Germany
Carsten Rockstuhl
Affiliation:
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Institute of Condensed Matter Theory and Solid State Optics and Abbe Center of Photonics, Max-Wien-Platz 1, 07743 Jena, Germany
Thomas Kirchartz
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, Blackett Laboratory of Physics, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
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Abstract

The Lambertian limit represents a benchmark for the enhancement of the effective path length in solar cells, which is important as soon as the absorption length exceeds the absorber thickness. In previous publications it has been shown that either extremely thick or extremely thin solar cells can be driven close to this limit by exploiting up to date photon management. In this contribution we show that the Lambertian limit can also be achieved with thin-film solar cells based on amorphous silicon for practically relevant absorber thicknesses. Departing from superstrates, which are currently incorporated into state-of-the-art thin-film solar cells, we show that their topology has simply to be downscaled to typical feature sizes of about 100 nm in order to achieve this goal. By systematically studying the impact of the modulation height and the lateral feature sizes of the incorporated textures and of the absorber thickness we are able to deduce intuitive guidelines how to approach the Lambertian limit in randomly textured thin-film solar cells.

Keywords

photovoltaictexturethin film

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