Light-scattering effectiveness of two-dimensional disordered surface textures in thin-film silicon solar cells

To compare the light-scattering effectiveness of surface-textured solar cells of various design parameters such as density, diameter, refractive index, and location, this study used a new parameter, optical path length gain (OPLG), that is more sensitive than Haze. By modeling two-dimensional disordered textures as a structure that comprises many randomly distributed, small, spherical scatterers, ray-tracing simulations of surface-textured thin-film silicon solar cells were performed. The simulation results suggest that: (1) the optimal scatterer diameter for hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells is ~50 nm, producing an average OPLG of 3.5; and (2) the optimal scatterer diameter for a-Si:H/μc-Si:H (hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon) tandem cells is ~75 nm, producing an average OPLG of 3.4 and an increase in the bandwidth of the absorption spectrum of 14.5%.