title: Two-dimensional disorder for broadband, omnidirectional and polarization-insensitive absorption.
abstract: The surface of thin-film solar cells can be tailored with photonic nanostructures to allow light trapping in the absorbing medium. This in turn increases the optical thickness of the film and thus enhances their absorption. Such a coherent light trapping is generally accomplished with deterministic photonic architectures. Here, we experimentally explore the use of a different nanostructure, a disordered one, for this purpose. We show that the disorder-induced modes in the film allow improvements in the absorption over a broad range of frequencies and impinging angles.
authors.affiliation: European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy, Via N Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze, Italy. burresi@lens.unifi.it
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Burresi
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pratesi
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vynck
authors.forename: Mauro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Prasciolu
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tormen
authors.forename: Diederik S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Wiersma