Light management of tandem solar cells on nanostructured substrates

We report the use of nanostructured substrates as a simple approach to improve the performance of tandem micromorph silicon solar cells. In the proposed approach, nanostructured substrates are produced using a low-cost, self-assembled growth process. The use of a nanostructured substrate coated with a thick transparent conductive oxide electrode layer enables the conformal deposition of the tandem solar cell absorber layers while allowing the solar cell to exhibit a modified surface morphology caused by the underlying nanostructured morphology. Using this nanostructured substrate approach, we demonstrated a 78% relative enhancement in the conversion efficiency of a tandem micromorph silicon cell on a nanostructured substrate compared to a standard tandem micromorph cell deposited onto a flat substrate. (C) 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)