Multi-scale texturing for a-Si/mc-Si thin-film tandem solar cells

Abstract

Glass texturing by sandblasting or cream etching methods was introduced for the light trapping purpose for a-Si/mc-Si thin-film tandem solar cells. The nm-scale features of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) front electrode and μm-scale features of textured glass form a multi-scale texturing scheme, which is potentially beneficial to the longer wavelength absorption in mc-Si cell and hence increase the total current of the tandem solar cell. Conformal growth model was applied successfully to analyze thin film growth on textured glass in this work. Power conversion efficiency improvements of ∼1.0% and ∼0.8% have been achieved with solar cells on sandblasting and cream-etching textured glass, respectively.