title: Light-scattering effectiveness of two-dimensional disordered surface textures in thin-film silicon solar cells.
abstract: 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%.
authors.forename: Pinghui S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.forename: Chien-Wei
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Bing-Ru
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Lu-Sheng
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Hong