Hybrid Dielectric-Metallic Back Reflector for Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

James G Mutitu,Dennis W Prather,Shouyuan Shi,Allen Barnett

doi:10.3390/en3121914

James G Mutitu, Dennis W Prather + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/en3121914

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Dec 10, 2010
Citations: 52	License type: CC BY 3.0

Affiliation: University of Delaware

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design and fabrication of hybrid dielectric-metallic back surface reflectors, for applications in thin film amorphous silicon solar cells. Standard multilayer distributed Bragg reflectors, require a large number of layers in order to achieve high reflectance characteristics. As it turns out, the addition of a metallic layer, to the base of such a multilayer mirror, enables a reduction in the number of dielectric layers needed to attain high reflectance performance. This paper explores the design, experimental realization and opportunities, in thin film amorphous silicon solar cells, afforded by such hybrid dielectric-metallic back surface reflectors.

Highlights

In this era of uncertainty over the future of global energy as a whole, strong sentiments have arisen against the use and pursuit of fossil fuel sources
The second structure had an anti reflection coating (ARC), added to an amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer, and we refer to this structure as “ARC + a-Si”
The third structure, incorporated the ARC and 1 layer DBR, we refer to this structure as “ARC+a-Si+1 Layer”

Summary

Introduction

In this era of uncertainty over the future of global energy as a whole, strong sentiments have arisen against the use and pursuit of fossil fuel sources. There is a constant drive to make PV competitive with other power production technologies, i.e., to reduce final costs to less than 1 $/Watt [2,3]. This is where the world of thin film. Energies 2010, 3 solar cells (TFSC) comes to into play. Reduce the material needed to make the solar cell, enable larger units of manufacturing than conventional wafer based technology and are prime candidates for competitive power production. TFSC technologies suffer from one major problem, i.e., lower efficiencies than conventional wafer based technologies [4]

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