Preprint 2014-26
Greg Barber, Muhammad Faryad, Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Thomas Mallouk, Peter Monk, Manuel Solano:
Buffer layer between a planar optical concentrator and a solar cell
Abstract:
The effect of inserting a buffer layer between a periodically multilayered isotropic dielectric (PMLID) material acting as a planar optical concentrator and a photovoltaic solar cell was theoretically investigated. The substitution of the photovoltaic material by a cheaper dielectric material in a large area of the structure could reduce the fabrication costs without significantly reducing the efficiency of the solar cell. Both crystalline silicon and gallium arsenide were considered as the photovoltaic material. We found that the buffer layer can act as an antireflection coating at the interface of the PMLID and the photovoltaic materials, and increasing the spectrally averaged electron-hole pair density by ~25%. Relative to a solarcell module without the POC and the buffer layer, there is an efficiency loss of 40% for c-Si solar cells and 14% for GaAs solar cells accompanied by the combination of the optimal POC and the optimal buffer layer.
This preprint gave rise to the following definitive publication(s):
Greg BARBER, Muhammad FARYAD, Akhlesh LAKHTAKIA, Thomas MALLOUK, Peter MONK, Manuel SOLANO: Buffer layer between a planar optical concentrator and a solar cell. AIP Advances, vol. 5, 097150, (2015)