Abstract
An ideal network window electrode for photovoltaic applications should provide an optimal surface coverage, a uniform current density into and/or from a substrate, and a minimum of the overall resistance for a given shading ratio. Here we show that metallic networks with quasi-fractal structure provides a near-perfect practical realization of such an ideal electrode. We find that a leaf venation network, which possesses key characteristics of the optimal structure, indeed outperforms other networks. We further show that elements of hierarchal topology, rather than details of the branching geometry, are of primary importance in optimizing the networks, and demonstrate this experimentally on five model artificial hierarchical networks of varied levels of complexity. In addition to these structural effects, networks containing nanowires are shown to acquire transparency exceeding the geometric constraint due to the plasmonic refraction.
Highlights
An ideal network window electrode for photovoltaic applications should provide an optimal surface coverage, a uniform current density into and/or from a substrate, and a minimum of the overall resistance for a given shading ratio
High electrical conductivity and optical transmittance of window electrodes play a crucial role in various optoelectronic devices such as solar cells[1,2,3], lightemitting diodes (LEDs)[4,5,6], displays[7,8,9], sensors[10,11,12] and smart windows[13,14,15]
Various window electrode materials have been developed in the last century, which have been based on thin, uniform films of metal oxides, highly doped large gap semiconductors
Summary
An ideal network window electrode for photovoltaic applications should provide an optimal surface coverage, a uniform current density into and/or from a substrate, and a minimum of the overall resistance for a given shading ratio. We first propose a theoretical analysis of window electrode networks subject to the following optimization conditions: (i) a maximal surface coverage; (ii) a uniform current density; and (iii) a minimum of the overall resistance at fixed shading.
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