Abstract
Due to the rising power demand and substantial interest in acquiring green energy from sunlight, there has been rapid development in the science and technology of photovoltaics (PV) in the last few decades. Furthermore, the synergy of the fields of metrology and fabrication has paved the way to acquire improved light collecting ability for solar cells. Based on recent studies, the performance of solar cell can improve due to the application of subwavelength nano-structures which results in smaller reflection losses and better light manipulation and/or trapping at subwavelength scale. In this paper, we propose a numerical optimization technique to analyze the reflection losses on an optimized GaAs-based solar cell which is covered with nano-structured features from the same material. Using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method, we have designed, modelled, and analyzed the performance of three different arrangements of periodic nano-structures with different pitches and heights. The simulated results confirmed that different geometries of nano-structures behave uniquely towards the impinging light.
Highlights
Given the economic and environmental incentives, and the resulting paradigm shift towards a more sustainable development, producing clean energy is becoming increasingly important, where PV systems development is one of the fastest growing industries
We study nano-structure optimization effect on the performance of solar cells with our specific choice of material, i.e., gallium arsenide (GaAs)
Considering the extensive research done on the characterization of the GaAs-based solar cell, we are interested in studying a thin film based solar cell partially covered with optimized nano-features that acts as an anti-reflective coating and improves power absorption efficiently
Summary
Given the economic and environmental incentives, and the resulting paradigm shift towards a more sustainable development, producing clean energy is becoming increasingly important, where PV systems development is one of the fastest growing industries. Considering the extensive research done on the characterization of the GaAs-based solar cell, we are interested in studying a thin film based solar cell partially covered with optimized nano-features that acts as an anti-reflective coating and improves power absorption efficiently. They satisfy the zero-order (ZO) diffraction grating condition [54,55,56], for which apart from zero-order of diffraction, higher orders are excluded as they decay while propagation, i.e., evanescent. For trapezoidal and triangular features, grooves are created between two full pitches as a result of inclined walls on the sides of nano-structures
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