Lithographically fabricable, optimized three-dimensional solar cell random structure

Abstract

The optimized random reflector is highly preferred for solar cells due to its superiority over an un-optimized totally random surface and its potential to exceed the Lambertian limit. There are some obstacles to overcome for realizing optimized random reflectors, including the feasibility from the process viewpoint and the intensive computational demand for large-scale random reflector design. Here a binary random grating is proposed which can be easily fabricated using common lithographic techniques. By using a global optimization algorithm and three-dimensional (3D) EMW simulation, the solar cell structure with 4 × 4 quasi-random binary grating can provide 23% higher integrated absorbance than its periodic grating counterpart and 103.5% higher integrated absorbance than a planar cell, approaching the Lambertian limit. Broad-band transmission improvement at short wavelength and a broad-band waveguiding effect at long wavelength is observed for the optimized 3D geometry. Additionally, the optimized random grating surpasses the periodic grating at all incident angles. The absorbance of the large-scale, fully optimized binary pattern can potentially exceed the Lambertian limit while its computational demand is shown to be manageable.