3D‐printed external light trap for solar cells
| Autor: | Gerhard A. Blab, Marcel Di Vece, Ruud E. I. Schropp, Lourens van Dijk, Ulrich W. Paetzold |
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| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: |
Materials science
02 engineering and technology 01 natural sciences law.invention 010309 optics Trap (computing) Optics Photovoltaics law 0103 physical sciences Solar cell Plasmonic solar cell Electrical and Electronic Engineering Absorption (electromagnetic radiation) thin‐film solar cells Research Articles external light trapping compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) Condensed Matter::Quantum Gases Theory of solar cells Renewable Energy Sustainability and the Environment business.industry Energy conversion efficiency 3D printing 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Condensed Matter Physics Electronic Optical and Magnetic Materials Solar cell efficiency Optoelectronics 0210 nano-technology business Research Article anti‐reflection |
| Zdroj: | Progress in Photovoltaics |
| ISSN: | 1099-159X 1062-7995 |
| DOI: | 10.1002/pip.2702 |
| Popis: | We present a universally applicable 3D‐printed external light trap for enhanced absorption in solar cells. The macroscopic external light trap is placed at the sun‐facing surface of the solar cell and retro‐reflects the light that would otherwise escape. The light trap consists of a reflective parabolic concentrator placed on top of a reflective cage. Upon placement of the light trap, an improvement of 15% of both the photocurrent and the power conversion efficiency in a thin‐film nanocrystalline silicon (nc‐Si:H) solar cell is measured. The trapped light traverses the solar cell several times within the reflective cage thereby increasing the total absorption in the cell. Consequently, the trap reduces optical losses and enhances the absorption over the entire spectrum. The components of the light trap are 3D printed and made of smoothened, silver‐coated thermoplastic. In contrast to conventional light trapping methods, external light trapping leaves the material quality and the electrical properties of the solar cell unaffected. To explain the theoretical operation of the external light trap, we introduce a model that predicts the absorption enhancement in the solar cell by the external light trap. The corresponding calculated path length enhancement shows good agreement with the empirically derived value from the opto‐electrical data of the solar cell. Moreover, we analyze the influence of the angle of incidence on the parasitic absorptance to obtain full understanding of the trap performance. © 2015 The Authors. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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