TY - JOUR
T1 - Inverse optimization of plasmonic and antireflective grating in thin film PV cells
AU - Hajimirza, Shima
AU - Howell, John
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - This work addresses inverse optimization of three dimensional front and back surface texture grating specifications, for the purpose of shaping the absorptivity spectrum of silicon thin film cells in targeted ways. Periodic plasmonic gratings with dimensions comparable or less than the incident light wavelength are known to enhance light absorption. We consider surface patterning of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin films using front and/or back metallic nanostrips and ITO coatings, and show that wideband enhancement in unpolarized absorptivity spectrum can be achieved when back reflectors are used. The overall short circuit current enhancement using such structures is significant and can be as high as 97%. For TM-polarized wave it can be even higher as reported in previous work. In this work however, we focus on the optimization for the more realistic unpolarized radiation which is of significantly higher complexity. In addition, optimization is done with respect to two objective functions independently: spectral absorptivity and gain-bandwidth product of the absorptivity spectrum.
AB - This work addresses inverse optimization of three dimensional front and back surface texture grating specifications, for the purpose of shaping the absorptivity spectrum of silicon thin film cells in targeted ways. Periodic plasmonic gratings with dimensions comparable or less than the incident light wavelength are known to enhance light absorption. We consider surface patterning of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin films using front and/or back metallic nanostrips and ITO coatings, and show that wideband enhancement in unpolarized absorptivity spectrum can be achieved when back reflectors are used. The overall short circuit current enhancement using such structures is significant and can be as high as 97%. For TM-polarized wave it can be even higher as reported in previous work. In this work however, we focus on the optimization for the more realistic unpolarized radiation which is of significantly higher complexity. In addition, optimization is done with respect to two objective functions independently: spectral absorptivity and gain-bandwidth product of the absorptivity spectrum.
KW - Inverse optimization
KW - Spectral absorptivity
KW - Thin film solar cells
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U2 - 10.1088/1742-6596/369/1/012015
DO - 10.1088/1742-6596/369/1/012015
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:84864036259
SN - 1742-6588
VL - 369
JO - Journal of Physics: Conference Series
JF - Journal of Physics: Conference Series
IS - 1
M1 - 012015
T2 - Eurotherm Conference No. 95: Computational Thermal Radiation in Participating Media IV
Y2 - 18 April 2012 through 20 April 2012
ER -