Optimization of the Antireflection Coating of Thin Epitaxial Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

In this work we use an effective weighting function to include the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) and the effective thickness, T_e, of the active cell layer in the optical modeling of the antireflection coating (ARC) of very thin crystalline silicon solar cells. The spectrum transmitted through the ARC is hence optimized for efficient use in the given cell structure and the solar cell performance can be improved. For a 2-μm thick crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cell the optimal thickness of the Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) ARC is reduced by ∼8 nm when IQE data and effective thickness are taken into account compared to the standard ARC optimization, using the AM1.5 spectrum only. The reduced ARC thickness will shift the reflectance minima towards shorter wavelengths and hence better match the absorption of very thin cells, where the short wavelength range of the spectrum is relatively more important than the long, weakly absorbed wavelengths. For this cell, we find that the optimal thickness of the ITO starts at 63 nm for very thin (1 μm) active Si layer and then increase with increasing T_e until it saturates at 71 nm for T_e > 30 μm.