title: Broadband light trapping based on periodically textured ZnO thin films.
abstract: Transparent conductive front electrodes (TCFEs) deployed in photovoltaic devices have been extensively studied for their significance in transporting carriers, coupling and trapping the incident photons in high-performing solar cells. The trade-off between the light-transmission, electrical, and scattering properties for TCFEs to achieve a broadband improvement in light absorption in solar cells while maintaining a high electrical performance has become the key issue to be tackled. In this paper, we employ self-assembled polystyrene (PS) spheres based on a sauna-like method as a template, followed by a double-layer deposition and then successfully fabricate highly-transparent, well-conductive, and large-scale periodically-textured ZnO TCFEs with broadband light trapping properties. A sheet resistance below 15 Ω sq(-1) was achieved for the periodically-textured ZnO TCFEs, with a concomitant average transmission of 81% (including the glass substrate) in the 400-1100 nm spectral range, a haze improvement in a broadband spectral range, and a wider scattering angular domain. The proposed approach affords a promising alternative method to prepare periodically-textured TCFEs, which are essential for many optoelectronic device semiconductors, such as photovoltaic and display applications.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photo Electronics thin Film Devices and Technology of Nankai University, Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic Thin Film Devices and Technology, Tianjin 300071, P. R. China. xdzhang@nankai.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Bofei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xuejiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Junhui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Lisha
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Haibo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Ze
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Xiaodan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang