Geometric light trapping for high efficiency thin film silicon solar cells

The imprinting of random square based pyramidal textures with micrometric scale at the air/glass interface of thin film silicon solar cells is presented as an efficient alternative to anti-reflective coatings to minimize reflection losses at the cell entrance. This novel processing step, which can be applied after cell or module manufacture, is found to simultaneously enhance light in-coupling and light-trapping in amorphous silicon/microcrystalline silicon tandem solar cells. A remarkable total current gain of more than 5% is demonstrated with the imprinting of such structures, resulting in a tandem cell with a high initial efficiency of 13% for a total absorber layer thickness below 1.5 mu m. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.