Accurate Calculation of the Absorptance Enhances Efficiency Limit of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells With Lambertian Light Trapping

Abstract

The widely accepted limiting efficiency for crystalline silicon solar cells with Lambertian light trapping under 1 sun was previously calculated to be 29.43% for a 110-μm-thick device by using the commonly applied weak absorption approximation for light trapping. However, the short-circuit current density increases by 0.17 mA/cm2 when modeling the optical absorptance of an ideal Lambertian light trapping scheme exactly. The resulting new 1-sun efficiency limit is 29.56% and holds for a cell that is 98.1 μm in thickness.