Experimental demonstration of broadband solar absorption beyond the lambertian limit in certain thin silicon photonic crystals

Hsieh, Mei-Li; Kaiser, Alex; Bhattacharya, Sayak; John, Sajeev; Lin, Shawn-Yu

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-68704-w

Experimental demonstration of broadband solar absorption beyond the lambertian limit in certain thin silicon photonic crystals

Journal Article · Thu Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68704-w· OSTI ID:1647330

Hsieh, Mei-Li ^[1]; Kaiser, Alex ^[2]; Bhattacharya, Sayak ^[3]; John, Sajeev ^[4]; Lin, Shawn-Yu ^[5]

Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Center for Future Energy System (CFES); National Chiao-Tung Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan); OSTI
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Center for Future Energy System (CFES)
Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada); Indraprastha Inst. of Information Technology, New Delhi (India)
Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Center for Future Energy System (CFES); National Chiao-Tung Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan)

The tantalizing possibility of 31% solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency in thin film crystalline silicon solar cell architectures relies essentially on solar absorption well beyond the Lambertian light trapping limit (Bhattacharya and John in Nat Sci Rep 9:12482, 2019). Up to now, no solar cell architecture has exhibited above-Lambertian solar absorption, integrated over the broad solar spectrum. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate two types of photonic crystal (PhC) solar cells architectures that exceed Lambertian light absorption, integrated over the entire 300–1,200 nm wavelength band. These measurements confirm theoretically predicted wave-interference-based optical resonances associated with long lifetime, slow-light modes and parallel-to-interface refraction. These phenomena are beyond the realm of ray optics. Using two types of 10-μm thick PhC’s, first an Inverted Pyramid PhC with lattice constant a= 2,500 nm and second a Teepee PhC with a = 1,200 nm, we observe solar absorption well beyond the Lambertian limit over λ = 950–1,200 nm. Our absorption measurements correspond to the maximum-achievable-photocurrent-density (MAPD), under AM1.5G illumination at 4-degree incident angle, 41.29 and 41.52 mA/cm2 for the Inverted Pyramid and Teepee PhC, respectively, in agreement with wave-optics, numerical simulations. Both of these values exceed the MAPD (= 39.63 mA/cm2) corresponding to the Lambertian limit for a 10-μm thick silicon for solar absorption over the 300–1,200 nm band.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Natural Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-06ER46347

OSTI ID:: 1647330

Journal Information:: Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 10; ISSN 2045-2322

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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