Optical confinement and optical loss in high-efficiency a-Si solar cells

Author

Hishikawa, Y. ; Kinoshita, T. ; Shima, M. ; Tanaka, M. ; Kiyama, S. ; Tsuda, S. ; Nakano, S.

Author_Institution

New Mater. Res. Center, Sanyo Electr. Co. Ltd., Osaka, Japan

fYear

1997

fDate

29 Sep-3 Oct 1997

Firstpage

615

Lastpage

618

Abstract

The world´s highest stabilized conversion efficiency of 9.5% has been achieved for a 30×40 cm² a-Si/a-SiGe glass superstrate solar cell submodule. However, significant optical loss still exists even in these high-efficiency a-Si solar cells. FEM numerical simulation has shown that the primary origin of the optical loss in textured a-Si solar cells at about ⩾800 nm is absorption in SnO₂ which is enhanced by the optical confinement effect. Optical confinement also results in increased absorption in the metal electrode, which is another source of optical loss

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; amorphous semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; finite element analysis; optical losses; semiconductor thin films; silicon; solar cells; 30 cm; 40 cm; 9.5 percent; FEM numerical simulation; Si; Si-SiGe; SnO₂; a-Si/a-SiGe glass superstrate solar cell submodule; high-efficiency a-Si solar cells; metal electrode; optical confinement; optical loss; textured a-Si solar cells; Absorption; Glass; Hydrogen; Numerical simulation; Optical films; Optical losses; Optical scattering; Optical surface waves; Photovoltaic cells; Surface texture;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1997., Conference Record of the Twenty-Sixth IEEE

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3767-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1997.654164

Filename

654164