Double texturations for light trapping in thin film crystalline silicon solar cells

Reports the light trapping improvement in a mono-crystalline silicon thin film photovoltaic stack with double texturations. Finite difference time domain optical simulations are performed to design double texturations assisted crystalline silicon solar cells. Simulations show that the double texturations patterned 1 μm thick c-Si solar cell stack would have an obviously increased integrated absorption of 87% when compared to a similar but unpatterned and smooth stack In order to fabricate such patterned stacks, an effective set of processes is developed based on laser holographic lithography, reactive ion etching and inductively coupled plasma etching. Optical measurements performed on the patterned stacks highlight the significant absorption increase achieved in the whole wavelength range of interest, as expected by simulation.