Coupled optical and electrical modeling of solar cell based on conical pore silicon photonic crystals

Journal of Applied Physics

Volumn 113, Issue 22, 2013, Pages

  Deinega, Alexei ^a   Eyderman, Sergey ^a   John, Sajeev ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CARRIER DIFFUSION LENGTH; CONTACT RECOMBINATIONS; EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT; PHOTONIC CRYSTAL FILMS; SILICON PHOTONIC CRYSTALS; SOLAR CELL EFFICIENCIES; SOLAR POWER CONVERSION; SURFACE RECOMBINATION LOSS;

EFFICIENCY; MAXWELL EQUATIONS; NANOWIRES; PHOTONIC CRYSTALS; SEMICONDUCTOR JUNCTIONS; SILICON; SOLAR ENERGY;

SOLAR CELLS;

EID: 84879228413     PISSN: 00218979     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1063/1.4809982     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. J. Nelson, The Physics of Solar Cells (Imperial College Press, London, 2003).
2. M. Green, Silicon Solar Cells: Advanced Principles and Practice (Centre for Photovoltaic Devices and Systems, Sydney, 1995).
3. M. Green, Third Generation Photovoltaics (Springer, Berlin, 2006).
4. Nanotechnology for Photovoltaics, edited by, L. Tsakalakos, (CRC Press, 2010).
5. G. Beaucarne, " Silicon thin-film solar cells.," Adv. OptoElectron. 2007, 36970 (2007). 10.1155/2007/36970
6. C. G. Bernhard, " Structural and functional adaptation in a visual system.," Endeavour 26, 79-84 (1967).
7. P. B. Clapham and M. C. Hutley, " Reduction of lens reflexion by the 'Moth Eye' principle.," Nature 244, 281-282 (1973). 10.1038/244281a0
8. W. Southwell, " Gradient-index antireflection coatings.," Opt. Lett. 8, 584-586 (1983). 10.1364/OL.8.000584
9. C.-H. Sun, P. Jiang, and B. Jiang, " Broadband moth-eye antireflection coatings on silicon.," Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 061112 (2008). 10.1063/1.2870080
10. C.-H. Chang, J. Dominguez-Caballero, H. Choi, and G. Barbastathis, " Nanostructured gradient-index antireflection diffractive optics.," Opt. Lett. 36, 2354-2356 (2011). 10.1364/OL.36.002354
11. Q. Yang, X. A. Zhang, A. Bagal, W. Guo, and C.-H. Chang, " Antireflection effects at nanostructured material interfaces and the suppression of thin-film interference.," Nanotechnology 24, 235202 (2013). 10.1088/0957-4484/24/23/235202
12. O. Bucci and G. Franceschetti, " Scattering from wedge-tapered absorbers.," IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 19, 96-104 (1971). 10.1109/TAP.1971.1139869
13. B. L. Sopori and R. A. Pryor, " Design of antireflection coatings for textured silicon solar cells.," Sol. Cells 8, 249-261 (1983). 10.1016/0379-6787(83)90064-9
14. Y. Kanamori, M. Sasaki, and K. Hane, " Broadband antireflection gratings fabricated upon silicon substrates.," Opt. Lett. 24, 1422-1424 (1999). 10.1364/OL.24.001422
15. S. A. Boden and D. M. Bagnall, " Tunable reflection minima of nanostructured antireflective surfaces.," Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 133108 (2008). 10.1063/1.2993231
16. D. Poxson, M. Schubert, F. Mont, E. Schubert, and J. K. Kim, " Broadband omnidirectional antireflection coatings optimized by genetic algorithm.," Opt. Lett. 34, 728-730 (2009). 10.1364/OL.34.000728
17. B. Paivanranta, T. Saastamoinen, and M. Kuittinen, " A wide-angle antireflection surface for the visible spectrum.," Nanotechnology 20, 375301 (2009). 10.1088/0957-4484/20/37/375301
18. A. Deinega, I. Valuev, B. Potapkin, and Yu. Lozovik, " Minimizing light reflection from dielectric textured surfaces.," J. Opt. Soc. Am A 28 (5), 770-777 (2011). 10.1364/JOSAA.28.000770
19. E. Yablonovitch, " Statistical ray optics.," J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72, 899-907 (1982). 10.1364/JOSA.72.000899
20. P. Campbell and M. A. Green, " Light trapping properties of pyramidally textured surfaces.," J. Appl. Phys. 62, 243-249 (1987). 10.1063/1.339189
21. P. Bermel, C. Luo, L. Zeng, L. C. Kimerling, and J. D. Joannopoulos, " Improving thin-film crystalline silicon solar cell efficiencies with photonic crystals.," Opt. Express 15, 16986-17000 (2007). 10.1364/OE.15.016986
22. D. Zhou and R. Biswas, " Photonic crystal enhanced light-trapping in thin film solar cells.," J. Appl. Phys. 103, 093102 (2008). 10.1063/1.2908212
23. R. Dewan and D. Knipp, " Light trapping in thin-film silicon solar cells with integrated diffraction grating.," J. Appl. Phys. 106, 074901 (2009). 10.1063/1.3232236
24. Z. Yu, A. Raman, and S. Fan, " Fundamental limit of light trapping in grating structures.," Opt. Express 18, 366-380 (2010). 10.1364/OE.18.00A366
25. S. E. Han and G. Chen, " Toward the Lambertian limit of light trapping in thin nanostructured silicon solar cells.," Nano Lett. 10, 4692-4696 (2010). 10.1021/nl1029804
26. S. B. Mallick, M. Agrawal, and P. Peumans, " Optimal light trapping in ultra-thin photonic crystal crystalline silicon solar cells.," Opt. Express 18, 5691-5706 (2010). 10.1364/OE.18.005691
27. S. Sandhu, Z. Yu, and S. Fan, " Detailed balance analysis of nanophotonic solar cells.," Opt. Express 21, 1209-1217 (2013). 10.1364/OE.21.001209
28. S. Eyderman, S. John, and A. Deinega, " Solar light trapping in slanted conical-pore photonic crystals: Beyond statistical ray trapping.," J. Appl. Phys. 113, 154315 (2013). 10.1063/1.4802442
29. L. Hu and G. Chen, " Analysis of optical absorption in silicon nanowire arrays for photovoltaic applications.," Nano Lett. 7 (11), 3249-3252 (2007). 10.1021/nl071018b
30. J. S. Li, H. Y. Yu, S. M. Wong, X. C. Li, G. Zhang, P. G. Q. Lo, and D. L. Kwong, " Design guidelines of periodic Si nanowire arrays for solar cell application.," Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 243113 (2009). 10.1063/1.3275798
31. C. Lin and M. L. Povinelli, " Optical absorption enhancement in silicon nanowire arrays with a large lattice constant for photovoltaic applications.," Opt. Express 17, 19371-19381 (2009). 10.1364/OE.17.019371
32. V. Sivakov, G. Andra, A. Gawlik, A. Berger, J. Plentz, F. Falk, and S. H. Christiansen, " Silicon nanowire-based solar cells on glass: Synthesis, optical properties, and cell parameters.," Nano Lett. 9 (4), 1549-1554 (2009). 10.1021/nl803641f
33. E. Garnett and P. Yang, " Light trapping in silicon nanowire solar cells.," Nano Lett. 10, 1082-1087 (2010). 10.1021/nl100161z
34. S. Han and G. Chen, " Optical absorption enhancement in silicon nanohole arrays for solar photovoltaics.," Nano Lett. 10, 1012-1015 (2010). 10.1021/nl904187m
35. G. Demesy and S. John, " Solar energy trapping with modulated silicon nanowire photonic crystals.," J. Appl. Phys. 112, 074326 (2012). 10.1063/1.4752775
36. A. Chutinan and S. John, " Light trapping and absorption optimization in certain thin-film photonic crystal architectures.," Phys. Rev. A 78, 023825 (2008). 10.1103/PhysRevA.78.023825
37. B. M. Kayes, H. A. Atwater, and N. S. Lewis, " Comparison of the device physics principles of planar and radial p-n junction nanorod solar cells.," J. Appl. Phys. 97, 114302 (2005). 10.1063/1.1901835
38. B. Z. Tian, X. L. Zheng, T. J. Kempa, Y. Fang, N. F. Yu, G. H. Yu, J. L. Huang, and C. M. Lieber, " Coaxial silicon nanowires as solar cells and nanoelectronic power sources.," Nature 449, 885 (2007). 10.1038/nature06181
39. L. Tsakalakos, J. Balch, J. Fronheiser, B. A. Korevaar, O. Sulima, and J. Rand, " Silicon nanowire solar cells.," Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 233117 (2007). 10.1063/1.2821113
40. M. D. Kelzenberg, D. B. Turner-Evans, B. M. Kayes, M. A. Filler, M. C. Putnam, N. S. Lewis, and H. A. Atwater, " Photovoltaic measurements in single-nanowire silicon solar cells.," Nano Lett. 8, 710 (2008). 10.1021/nl072622p
41. Z. Fan, H. Razavi, J. Do, A. Moriwaki, O. Ergen, Y.-L. Chueh, P. W. Leu, J. C. Ho, T. Takahashi, L. A. Reichertz, S. Neale, K. Yu, M. Wu, J. W. Ager, and A. Javey, " Three dimensional nanopillar array photovoltaics on low cost and flexible substrates.," Nature Mater. 8, 648 (2009). 10.1038/nmat2493
42. H. Yoon, Y. Yuwen, C. Kendrick, G. Barber, N. Podraza, J. Redwing, T. Mallouk, C. Wronski, and T. Mayer, " Enhanced conversion efficiencies for pillar array solar cells fabricated from crystalline silicon with short minority carrier diffusion lengths.," Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 213503 (2010). 10.1063/1.3432449
43. K.-Q. Peng and S.-T. Lee, " Silicon nanowires for photovoltaic solar energy conversion.," Adv. Mater. 23, 198-215 (2011). 10.1002/adma. 201002410
44. J. Christesen, X. Zhang, C. Pinion, T. Celano, C. Flynn, and J. Cahoon, " Design principles for photovoltaic devices based on Si nanowires with axial or radial p-n junctions.," Nano Lett. 12, 6024 (2012). 10.1021/nl303610m
45. A. Deinega and S. John, " Finite difference discretization of semiconductor drift-diffusion equations for nanowire solar cells.," Comput. Phys. Commun. 183, 2128 (2012). 10.1016/j.cpc.2012.05.016
46. A. Deinega and S. John, " Solar power conversion efficiency in modulated silicon nanowire photonic crystals.," J. Appl. Phys. 112, 074327 (2012). 10.1063/1.4752776
47. M. D. Kelzenberg, M. C. Putnam, D. B. Turner-Evans, N. S. Lewis, and H. A. Atwater, " Predicted efficiency of Si wire array solar cells.," in Proceedings of the 34th IEEE PVSC (2009).
48. R. Kapadia, Z. Fan, and A. Javey, " Design constraints and guidelines for CdS/CdTe nanopillar based photovoltaics.," Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 103116 (2010). 10.1063/1.3340938
49. R. R. LaPierre, " Numerical model of current-voltage characteristics and efficiency of GaAs nanowire solar cells.," J. Appl. Phys. 109, 034311 (2011). 10.1063/1.3544486
50. J. Foley, M. Price, J. Feldblyum, and S. Maldonado, " Analysis of the operation of thin nanowire photoelectrodes for solar energy conversion.," Energy Environ. Sci. 5, 5203-5220 (2012). 10.1039/c1ee02518j
51. M. Deceglie, V. Ferry, A. Alivisatos, and H. Atwater, " Design of nanostructured solar cells using coupled optical and electrical modeling.," Nano Lett. 12, 2894 (2012). 10.1021/nl300483y
52. N. Huang, C. Lin, and M. L. Povinelli, " Limiting efficiencies of tandem solar cells consisting of III-V nanowire arrays on silicon.," J. Appl. Phys. 112, 064321 (2012). 10.1063/1.4754317
53. A. Taflove and S. H. Hagness, Computational Electrodynamics: The Finite Difference Time-Domain Method (Artech House, Boston, 2005).
54. See http://fdtd.kintechlab.com for Electromagnetic Template Library (EMTL), Kintech Lab Ltd.
55. I. Valuev, A. Deinega, and S. Belousov, " Iterative technique for analysis of periodic structures at oblique incidence in the finite-difference time-domain method.," Opt. Lett. 33, 1491-1493 (2008). 10.1364/OL.33.001491
56. I. Valuev, A. Deinega, and S. Belousov, " Implementation of the iterative finite-difference time-domain technique for simulation of periodic structures at oblique incidence.," Comput. Phys. Commun. (unpublished).
57. A. Deinega and I. Valuev, " Subpixel smoothing for conductive and dispersive media in the FDTD method.," Opt. Lett. 32, 3429-3431 (2007). 10.1364/OL.32.003429
58. A. Deinega and I. Valuev, " Long-time behavior of PML absorbing boundaries for layered periodic structures.," Comput. Phys. Commun. 182, 149-151 (2011). 10.1016/j.cpc.2010.06.006
59. M. A. Green and M. Keevers, " Optical properties of intrinsic silicon at 300 K.," Prog. Photovoltaics 3, 189-192 (1995). 10.1002/pip.4670030303
60. A. Deinega and S. John, " Effective optical response of silicon to sunlight in the finite-difference time-domain method.," Opt. Lett. 37, 112-114 (2012). 10.1364/OL.37.000112
61. See http://fdtd.kintechlab.com/en/fitting for Program for fitting of dielectric function.
62. S. Selberherr, Analysis and Simulation of Semiconductor Devices (Springer, Wien, 1984).
63. R. Kircher and W. Bergner, Three-Dimensional Simulation of Semiconductor Devices (Birkhauser Verlag, 1991).
64. See http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/spectra/am1.5 for Air Mass 1.5 Global Spectrum.
65. See https://sites.physics.utoronto.ca/sajeevjohn/software/microvolt for Microvolt software for semiconductor devices modeling.
66. J. Meier, S. Dubail, S. Golay, U. Kroll, S. Fay, E. Vallat-Sauvain, L. Feitknecht, J. Dubail, and A. Shah, " Microcrystalline silicon and the impact on micromorph tandem solar cells.," Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 74, 457-467 (2002). 10.1016/S0927-0248(02)00111-3
67. J. Zhu, Z. Yu, G. F. Burkard, C. M. Hsu, S. T. Connor, Y. Xu, Q. Wang, M. McGehee, S. Fan, and Y. Cui, " Optical absorption enhancement in amorphous silicon nanowire and nanocone arrays.," Nano Lett. 9, 279 (2009). 10.1021/nl802886y
68. M. M. Adachi, M. P. Anantram, and K. S. Karim, " Optical properties of crystalline-amorphous core-shell silicon nanowires.," Nano Lett. 10, 4093-4098 (2010). 10.1021/nl102183x
69. J. Kim, A. J. Hong, J.-W. Nah, B. Shin, F. M. Ross, and D. K. Sadana, " Three-dimensional a-Si:H solar cells on glass nanocone arrays patterned by self-assembled Sn nanospheres.," ACS Nano 6, 265 (2012). 10.1021/nn203536x
70. C.-M. Hsu, C. Battaglia, C. Pahud, Z. Ruan, F.-J. Haug, S. Fan, C. Ballif, and Y. Cui, " High-efficiency amorphous silicon solar cell on a periodic nanocone back reflector.," Adv. Energy Mater. 2, 628 (2012). 10.1002/aenm.201100514
71. Z. Pei, S.-T. Chang, C.-W. Liu, and Y.-C. Chen, " Numerical simulation on the photovoltaic behavior of an amorphous-silicon nanowire-array solar cell.," IEEE Electron Device Lett. 30, 1305-1307 (2009).
72. P. J. Rostan, U. Rau, V. X. Nguyen, T. Kirchartz, M. B. Schubert, and J. H. Werner, " Low-temperature a-Si:H/ZnO/Al back contacts for high-efficiency silicon solar cell.," Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 90, 1345 (2006). 10.1016/j.solmat.2005.11.010
73. W. Zou, C. Visser, J. A. Maduro, M. S. Pshenichnikov, and J. C. Hummelen, " Broadband dye-sensitized upconversion of near-infrared light.," Nat. Photonics 6, 560-564 (2012). 10.1038/nphoton.2012.158