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Design and Analysis of Spectrally Selective Patterned Thin-Film Cells

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Abstract

This paper outlines several techniques for systematic and efficient optimization as well as sensitivity assessment to fabrication tolerances of surface texturing patterns in thin film amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells. The aim is to achieve maximum absorption enhancement. The joint optimization of several geometrical parameters of a three-dimensional lattice of periodic square silver nanoparticles, and an absorbing thin layer of a-Si, using constrained optimization tools and numerical FDTD simulations is reported. Global and local optimization methods, such as the Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno quasi-Newton method and simulated annealing, are employed concurrently for solving the inverse near-field radiation problem. The design of the silver-patterned solar panel is optimized to yield maximum average enhancement in photon absorption over the solar spectrum. The optimization techniques are expedited and improved using a novel nonuniform adaptive spectral sampling technique. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the optimally designed parameters of the solar structure is analyzed by postulating a probabilistic model for the errors introduced in the fabrication process. Monte Carlo simulations and unscented transform techniques are used for this purpose.

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Notes

  1. The term irradiance-absorption profile, and the details of the mentioned method shall be formally outlined in the remainder of the paper.

Abbreviations

\(a\) :

Variable in Eq. 7

\(E\) :

Enhancement factor

\(f\) :

Objective function

\(h_{\mathrm{Ag}}\) :

Height of silver nanowires

\(h_{\mathrm{Si}}\) :

Height of amorphous silicon

\(H_n\) :

Hermite polynomial of order \(N\)

\(I\) :

Solar irradiance spectrum

\(S_i\) :

Sigma points for the unscented transform

\(T\) :

Number of satisfied moments in unscented transform

\(w_i\) :

Sigma weights for the unscented transform

\(w_{\mathrm{Ag}}\) :

Width of silver nanowires

\({\varvec{x}}\) :

Selected geometry

\(\Vert {\varvec{x}} \Vert \) :

Norm of vector \({\varvec{x}}\)

\(\alpha _{\mathrm{gr}}\) :

Spectral absorptivity in the presence of grating

\(\alpha _{\mathrm{ngr}}\) :

Spectral absorptivity in the absence of grating

\(\lambda \) :

Wavelength

\(\gamma _i, \lambda _i\) :

Predefined constants

\(\Delta {\varvec{x}}\) :

Change in \({\varvec{x}}\)

\(\varLambda _{\mathrm{Ag}}\) :

Nanowires period

\(\varOmega \) :

Optical wavelength range

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate support for this work from the US National Science Foundation under Grant CBET-1032415 and also would like to thank Dr. Alex Heltzel for helpful discussions.

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  1. University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Shima Hajimirza & John R. Howell

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  1. Shima Hajimirza
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Correspondence to Shima Hajimirza.

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Hajimirza, S., Howell, J.R. Design and Analysis of Spectrally Selective Patterned Thin-Film Cells. Int J Thermophys 34, 1930–1952 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-013-1495-y

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