title: Effect of aperiodicity on the broadband reflection of silicon nanorod structures for photovoltaics.
abstract: We carry out a systematic numerical study of the effects of aperiodicity on silicon nanorod anti-reflection structures. We use the scattering matrix method to calculate the average reflection loss over the solar spectrum for periodic and aperiodic arrangements of nanorods. We find that aperiodicity can either improve or deteriorate the anti-reflection performance, depending on the nanorod diameter. We use a guided random-walk algorithm to design optimal aperiodic structures that exhibit lower reflection loss than both optimal periodic and random aperiodic structures.
authors.affiliation: Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering and Center for Energy Nanoscience, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. chenxil@usc.edu
authors.forename: Chenxi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Ningfeng
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Michelle L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Povinelli
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005374:Filtration / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008027:Light; D008956:Models, Chemical; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*; D012993:Solar Energy
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon