Broadband Solar Energy Absorption in Plasmonic Thin-Film Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell

Broadband light absorption enhancement in thin-film silicon solar cells.

Currently, the performances of thin film solar cells are limited by poor light absorption and carrier collection. In this research, large, broadband, and polarization-insensitive light absorption enhancement was realized via integrating with unique metallic nanogratings. Through simulation, three possible mechanisms were identified to be responsible for such an enormous enhancement. A test for ...

Thin-film Silicon Solar Cells

The simplest semiconductor junction that is used in solar cells for separating photogenerated charge carriers is the p-n junction, an interface between the p-type region and ntype region of one semiconductor. Therefore, the basic semiconductor property of a material, the possibility to vary its conductivity by doping, has to be demonstrated first before the material can be considered as a suita...

Thin-film crystalline silicon solar cells

A photoelectric conversion efficiency of over 10% has been achieved in thin-film polycrystalline silicon solar cells which consists of a 2 μm thick layer of polycrystalline silicon with a very small grain size (microcrystalline silicon) formed by low-temperature plasma CVD. This has shown that if the recombination velocity at grain boundaries can be made very small, then it is not necessarily i...

Crystalline Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells

Optical absorption enhancement of thin-film amorphous silicon induced by femtosecond laser pulses for solar cell fabrication

In this paper, we present a new method for direct-write laser fabrication of thin-film amorphous silicon (a-Si) on crystalline silicon substrate induced by femtosecond laser irradiation. Using megahertz frequency femtosecond laser pulses makes it possible to control laser fluence in the amorphization range of silicon under ambient condition. Finally, a thin-film of amorphous silicon is generate...