Spectra dependent photonic structure design for energy harvesting by indoor photovoltaic devices

Abstract

In this work, we report spectra-dependent energy harvesting by optimizing the photon management of an indoor photovoltaic device while taking into consideration the degradation of electrical transport characteristics caused by the nano-photonic structures. For the test case of a CdTe-based photovoltaic device, it has been shown that although the incorporation of dielectric-filled nanoholes in the absorber layer can enhance light absorption by about 40%, the optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency of the device is significantly diminished because of the degradation of the electrical transport characteristics. Instead, the best performance metrics are obtained when the nanostructures are incorporated in the window layer of the device alone. A finite difference time domain based numerical analysis, coupled with Poisson’s equation and continuity equation, shows that by controlling the areal density of the optimized structure in direct correlation with spectral characteristics of the illuminating light source, it is possible to maximize the overall power conversion efficiency of the indoor photovoltaic device. In the case of commercial white light-emitting diodes (LEDs), large arealdensities of holes are found to be more conducive for harvesting energy from cool-white LEDs, whereas smaller areal densities of holes provide better performances for illumination under warm-glow white LEDs.