Accurate modeling of light trapping in thin film silicon solar cells

Conference · Wed Dec 31 00:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:302465

Abouelsaood, A A ^[1]; Ghannam, M Y ^[2]; Poortmans, J; Mertens, R P ^[3]

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1. Cairo Univ. (Egypt). Physics and Mathematics Dept.
2. Kuwait Univ. (Kuwait)
3. IMEC, Leuven (Belgium)

An attempt is made to assess the accuracy of the simplifying assumption of total retransmission of light inside the escape or loss cone which is made in many models of optical confinement in thin-film silicon solar cells. A closed form expression is derived for the absorption enhancement factor as a function of the refractive index in the low-absorption limit for a thin-film cell with a flat front surface and a lambertian back reflector. Numerical calculations are carried out to investigate similar systems with antireflection coatings, and the investigation of cells with a textured front surface is achieved using a modified version of the existing ray-tracing computer simulation program TEXTURE.

• OSTI ID: 302465
• Report Number(s): CONF-970953-; TRN: IM9904%%253
• Resource Relation: Conference: 26. IEEE photovoltaic specialists conference, Anaheim, CA (United States), 29 Sep - 3 Oct 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of Conference record of the twenty sixth IEEE photovoltaic specialists conference -- 1997; PB: 1477 p.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
VISIBLE RADIATION
ABSORPTION
ANTIREFLECTION COATINGS
T CODES
REFRACTIVE INDEX