Omnidirectional light absorption in thin film silicon solar cell with dual anti-reflection coatings

A theoretical model for an all-in-one thin film silicon solar cell (TFSSC) design with the anti-reflection (AR) coatings, the transparent electrodes, the silicon and the back reflective coatings all deposited on one piece of glass is proposed and the optical performance for the design is numerically simulated. The calculated average reflectance over the wavelength range of 0.4–1.0 μm and incident angles from 0° to 75° for the optimized dual-AR coatings as a whole is 3.67% – ranking among the lowest values for current AR coatings on silicon solar cells. Furthermore, the spectrum-averaged absorptance (SAA) in the 5-μm-thick cell in the 0.3–1.2 μm wavelength range decreases only by 2.58% when the incident angle varies from 0° to 75°, clearly showing the omnidirectional characteristics of the dual-AR coatings. With reasonable assumption of the internal quantum efficiency (near unity), the 5-μm cell produces a spectrum averaged external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 81.4% at 75° angle of incidence – 6.7% larger than the experiment result of the best planar bulk cell. Under equal sunshine conditions, TFSSCs generally give higher output voltages than their bulk counterpart if equal light absorption is assumed, so the 5-μm cell has the potential to reach the highest experimental conversion efficiency of the best planar bulk cell. By using a special mathematical technique, we are able to prove the angle-dependent absorption curves in the longer wavelength region tend to converge to a small neighborhood of the upper limit irrespective of significant differences between the transmission profiles. This indicates the AR requirement in the longer wavelength region can be significantly relaxed.

► We simulate thin silicon solar cell with dual anti-reflection coatings.
► Average reflectance ranks among the lowest for current anti-reflection coatings.
► Spectrum-averaged absorptance decreases by 2.58% between 0° and 75°.
► The 5-μm-thick cell show good broadband and omnidirectional characteristics.