Light trapping design for low band-gap polymer solar cells

We demonstrate numerically a 2-D nanostructured design for light trapping in a low band-gap polymer solar cell. Finite element method simulations are used to study the effect of varying nanostructure periodicity, height, and shape on active layer absorption. Maintaining a constant active layer thickness of 100nm we observe an enhancement in solar absorption of almost 40% relative to a planar cell. Improvements of this magnitude enable single-junction, low-band-gap cells to achieve power conversion efficiencies of 11.2% and perform competitively with even state-of-the-art tandem cells. Our design is also shown to significantly outperform tandem cells at off-normal angles of incidence. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America