% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded. This means that in the presence
% of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older.
% Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or
% “biber”.
@INPROCEEDINGS{Paetzold:173099,
author = {Paetzold, Ulrich W. and Smeets, Michael and Lehnen, Stephan
and Bittkau, Karsten and Meier, Matthias and Smirnov,
Vladimir and Michaelis, Dirk and Waechter, Christoph and
Carius, Reinhard and Rau, Uwe},
title = {{L}ight {T}rapping with {W}aveguide {M}odes in
{P}eriodically {N}anostructured {T}hin-{F}ilm {S}ilicon
{S}olar {C}ells},
reportid = {FZJ-2014-06512},
year = {2014},
abstract = {Thin-film silicon solar cells offer the advantages of low
material and manufacturing costs. In order to enhance the
absorptance of incident light in the optically thin silicon
absorber layer, this technology requires advanced
light-trapping concepts. Conventional devices apply randomly
textured transparent conductive oxide substrates serving as
light-scattering front contacts as well as reflective
light-scattering metal back contacts. In recent years,
several novel light-trapping concepts based on periodic
nanostructures and periodically nanotextured interfaces,
such as grating couplers, photonic crystals or plasmonic
reflection gratings, have been suggested and prototyped. For
these concepts the absorption of incident light in the solar
cells is enhanced by light-coupling to waveguide modes which
are supported by the silicon absorber layer of the solar
cells but can be excited at the same time by incident
light.In this contribution, our recent progress on
light-trapping in periodically structured prototype
thin-film silicon solar cells made of hydrogenated amorphous
silicon and hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon is
presented. The prototype solar cells show a superior
light-trapping effect compared to solar cells applying the
conventional random texture for light-trapping. To better
understand this improved light-trapping effect, the coupling
of incident light to waveguide modes in periodically
nanostructured thin-film silicon solar cells is analysed
in-depth. Therefore, the shape of the grating structure and
the geometry of the unit cell of the two-dimensional
periodic grating structure of the thin-film silicon solar
cells are varied systematically and the excitation of the
waveguide modes is studied. To characterize the coupling of
incident light to individual waveguide modes, advanced
characterization techniques, i.e. angular and polarization
dependent spectral response measurements of resolution below
3 nm as well as near-field scanning optical microscopy, are
developed and employed. Finally, based on our study new
routes for improved designs of the periodic nanostructure of
thin-film silicon solar cells will be outlined.},
month = {Apr},
date = {2014-04-21},
organization = {MRS Spring Meeting, San Francisco
(USA), 21 Apr 2014 - 25 Apr 2014},
subtyp = {Invited},
cin = {IEK-5},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IEK-5-20101013},
pnm = {111 - Thin Film Photovoltaics (POF2-111) / HITEC -
Helmholtz Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training in Energy and
Climate Research (HITEC) (HITEC-20170406)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF2-111 / G:(DE-Juel1)HITEC-20170406},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)6},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/173099},
}