Photonic and plasmonic structures for applications in solar cells

The effect of decoupled front/back textures and the application of photonic and plasmonic nanostructures on the performance of thin silicon solar cells was studied. New light trapping concepts based on diffraction on periodic photonic nanostructures and scattering using plasmonic structures have potential to outperform the currently used randomly textured structures. The study demonstrates that supporting layers of solar cells, such as transparent conductive oxides, doped layers and back reflectors, are responsible for significant parasitic absorption losses that prevent achieving 4n2 enhancement of light absorption in solar cells with silicon absorbers.