Journal article
Optical Evaluation of Silicon Wafers With Rounded Rear Pyramids
IEEE journal of photovoltaics, v 7(6), pp 1596-1602
Nov 2017
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
We investigate the light trapping in Si wafers that are textured with conventional random pyramids on their front surface and rounded random pyramids on their rear. It is well established that rounding the pyramids leads to better surface passivation, but whether or not it improves light trapping depends on the cell structure. In this paper, we apply ray tracing, spectrophotometry, and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PLS) to understand and quantify how rounding the rear pyramids might affect the light trapping in back-contact solar cells. We describe how rounding the pyramids leads to two competing optical effects: 1) reduced absorption in the rear films and 2) reduced scattering from the rear texture. The first effect improves light trapping whereas the latter degrades it. We show how the influence of each effect depends on wavelength and how they can be discerned (but not easily quantified) in reflectance curves. With PLS measurements, we conclude that for our sample structure and etch solution, the generation current is approximately constant for etch durations less than ~60 s, and decreases significantly as the etch duration increases. Thus, by limiting the duration of the rounding etch, superior surface passivation can be attained without degrading the light trapping.
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Details
- Title
- Optical Evaluation of Silicon Wafers With Rounded Rear Pyramids
- Creators
- Keith R McIntosh - Lighthouse GuildNgwe Zin - University of Central FloridaHieu T Nguyen - Australian National UniversityMatthew Stocks - Australian National UniversityEvan Franklin - Australian National UniversityKean C Fong - Australian National UniversityTeng C Kho - Australian National UniversityTeck K Chong - Australian National UniversityEr-Chien Wang - Energy Research InstituteTom Ratcliff - Australian National UniversityDaniel Macdonald - Australian National UniversityAndrew W Blakers - Australian National University
- Publication Details
- IEEE journal of photovoltaics, v 7(6), pp 1596-1602
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Grant note
- Australian Government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (10.13039/501100005105) Trina Solar
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000413934100017
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85031809794
- Other Identifier
- 991019320614904721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Energy & Fuels
- Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
- Physics, Applied