Design guideline of high efficiency crystalline Si thin film solar cell with nanohole array textured surface

Abstract

Silicon thin film with a nanohole (NH) array textured surface is systematically studied via simulation for solar energy harvesting and compared with a nanopillar (NP) array textured one. It is found that for the same thickness and optimized structure parameters, the NH array shows superior light trapping capability and thus, higher power conversion efficiency than its NP counterpart. The requirement for efficient cells at the optically optimized NH and NP geometries are studied in terms of minority carrier diffusion length, emitter doping level, and the emitter junction depth after considering the impact of surface recombination velocity. The results provide a practical guideline to design and fabricate high efficiency and cost effective NH textured Si thin film solar cells.