Nanoparticles for light management in ultrathin chalcopyrite solar cells
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Phillip Manley Nanooptische Konzepte für die PV, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 14109 Berlin, Germany
Andreas Ott Institut Weiche Materie und Funktionale Materialien, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 14109 Berlin, Germany
Min Song Nanooptische Konzepte für die PV, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 14109 Berlin, Germany; and Department of Physics, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Guanchao Yin Nanooptische Konzepte für die PV, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, 14109 Berlin, Germany (Received 25 May 2016; accepted 23 September 2016)
We evaluate the potential of inserting metallic, metal-dielectric core-shell, and fully dielectric nanoparticles in ultrathin chalcopyrite solar cells to enhance absorption which experiences a significant drop for absorber thicknesses below 500 nm. For different integration positions at the front or at the rear of the solar cell structure theoretical expectations and potential benefits originating from light scattering, near-field enhancement and coupling into waveguide modes by the nanoparticles are presented. These benefits are always balanced against experimental challenges arising for particular geometries due to the very specific fabrication processes of chalcopyrite solar cells. In particular high absorber deposition temperatures as well as contact layers that are relatively thick compared to other devices need to be considered. Based on this, we will need to go beyond some geometries that have proven beneficial for other types of solar cells and identify the most promising configurations for chalcopyrite-based devices.
I. INTRODUCTION
Chalcopyrite solar cells have recently reached a new record efficiency of 22.6%,1 thus demonstrating the continuous improvement of this technology. Furthermore, Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) polycrystalline thin-film solar cells stand out due to their high stability and tolerance against environmental influences e.g., shading or cosmic radiation.2 With an additional short energy payback time they constitute a serious thin-film competitor for wafer-based silicon solar cells. When envisaging a high production volume, however, the scarcity of the contained element indium can become a limiting factor. This consideration and the high supply risk of In [8.1/10 in 2015 (Ref. 3)] need to be addressed by a reduction of absorber material usage. Reduced material consumption will also help to further reduce costs, since material consumption still contributes to more than 60% of Contributing Editor: Winston V. Schoenfeld a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] This paper has been selected as an Invited Feature Paper. DOI: 10.1557/jmr.2016.382
production costs.4 When approaching the material reduction by reducing the absorber thickness from typical values of 2–3 lm to below 500 nm, a further benefit will lie in an increasing production throughput. Apart from these economic aspects, thin absorbers are beneficial for reduced recombination in the bulk. On the other hand, they bring the challenges of more serious interface recombination and in particu
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