Abstract
Microstructured transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) have shown great potential as photonic electrodes in photovoltaic (PV) applications, providing both optical and electrical improvements in the solar cells’ performance due to: (1) strong light trapping effects that enhance broadband light absorption in PV material and (2) the reduced sheet resistance of the front illuminated contact. This work developed a method for the fabrication and optimization of wavelength-sized indium zinc oxide (IZO) microstructures, which were soft-patterned on flexible indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrates via a simple, low-cost, versatile, and highly scalable colloidal lithography process. Using this method, the ITO-coated PET substrates patterned with IZO micro-meshes provided improved transparent electrodes endowed with strong light interaction effects—namely, a pronounced light scattering performance (diffuse transmittance up to ~50%). In addition, the photonic-structured IZO mesh allowed a higher volume of TCO material in the electrode while maintaining the desired transparency, which led to a sheet resistance reduction (by ~30%), thereby providing further electrical benefits due to the improvement of the contact conductance. The results reported herein pave the way for a new class of photonic transparent electrodes endowed with mechanical flexibility that offer strong potential not only as advanced front contacts for thin-film bendable solar cells but also for a much broader range of optoelectronic applications.
Highlights
The ubiquitous availability of solar energy is only one factor in the long chain leading to its conversion to usable electricity
Second-generation devices based on thin-film solar cells (TFSCs) have emerged due to the necessity of lowering production costs, reducing material expenditure, and increasing mechanical flexibility, enabling a much wider range of applications
poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrates, which show pronounced flexibility
Summary
The ubiquitous availability of solar energy is only one factor in the long chain leading to its conversion to usable electricity. Second-generation devices based on thin-film solar cells (TFSCs) have emerged due to the necessity of lowering production costs, reducing material expenditure, and increasing mechanical flexibility, enabling a much wider range of applications. Due to their reduced thickness, TFSCs suffer from major absorption losses, especially when compared with thicker wafer-based cells [5,6]. Effective light trapping (LT) techniques offer great improvement potential for flexible TFSCs as a means to make the cells optically thicker while reducing their physical thickness and enabling mechanical bending
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