Enhanced light trapping with double-groove grating in thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells

• A thin-film solar cell based on the double-groove grating is investigated.
• The designed solar cells have large angle-independent integrated absorption
• The results may provide guidance for the design of grating-based solar cells.

A design to enhance light absorption in thin-film amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells is proposed. It is achieved by patterning a double-groove grating with waveguide layer as the absorbing layer and coating a double-groove grating anti-reflective layer in the front window of the cell. The broadband absorption under normal incidence can be achieved for both TE and TM polarizations. It is shown that the averaged integrated absorptions have very large angle independence for the optimized solar cell. An qualitative understanding of such broadband enhanced absorption effect, which is attributed to the guided mode resonance, is presented. The conclusions can be exploited to guide the design of solar cells based on a grating structure.