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Hydrogenated amorphous Si (α-Si: H) is a promising material for photovoltaic applications due to its low cost, high abundance, long lifetime, and non-toxicity. We demonstrate a device designed to investigate the effect of nanostructured back reflectors on quantum efficiency in photovoltaic devices. We adopt a superstrate configuration so that we may use conventional industrial light trapping strategies for thin film solar cells as a reference for comparison. We controlled the nanostructure parameters via a wafer-scale self-assembly technique and systematically studied the relation between nanostructure size and photocurrent generation. The gain/loss transition at short wavelengths showed red-shifts with decreasing nanostructure scale. In the infrared region the nanostructured back reflector shows large photocurrent enhancement with a modified feature scale. This device geometry is a useful archetype for investigating absorption enhancement by nanostructures.
Hydrogenated amorphous Si (α-Si: H) is a promising material for photovoltaic applications due to its low cost, high abundance, long lifetime, and non-toxicity. We demonstrate a device designed to investigate the effect of nanostructured back reflectors on quantum efficiency in photovoltaic devices. We adopt a superstrate configuration so that we may use conventional industrial light trapping strategies for thin film solar cells as a reference for comparison. We controlled the nanostructure parameters via a wafer-scale self-assembly technique and systematically studied the relation between nanostructure size and photocurrent generation. The gain/loss transition at short wavelengths showed red-shifts with decreasing nanostructure scale. In the infrared region the nanostructured back reflector shows large photocurrent enhancement with a modified feature scale. This device geometry is a useful archetype for investigating absorption enhancement by nanostructures.
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We thank Dr. Tiemin Zhao and Dr. Zongfu Yu for material deposition and optical discussion.
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