Experimental demonstration of enhanced photon recycling in angle-restricted GaAs solar cells
Abstract
For cells near the radiative limit, optically limiting the angles of emitted light causes emitted photons to be recycled back to the cell, leading to enhancement in voltage and efficiency. While this has been understood theoretically for some time, only recently have GaAs cells reached sufficient quality for the effect to be experimentally observed. Here, as proof of concept, we demonstrate enhanced photon recycling and open-circuit voltage (V_(oc)) experimentally using a narrow band dielectric multilayer angle restrictor on a high quality GaAs cell. With angle restriction we observe a clear decrease in the radiative dark current, which is consistent with the observed V_(oc) increase. Furthermore, we observe larger V_(oc) enhancements for cells that are closer to the radiative limit, and that more closely coupling the angle restrictor to the cell leads to greater V_(oc) gains, emphasizing the optical nature of the effect.
Additional Information
© 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Received 31 Oct 2013, Accepted 15 Apr 2014, First published online 15 Apr 2014. Thanks to M. Sheldon, E. Warmann, J. Bosco, and C. Eisler for useful discussions and comments and to J. Lloyd for assistance with figure preparation. This work was supported by the the 'Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion' Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001293. E.K. is also the recipient of a Resnick Sustainability Institute Graduate Fellowship.Attached Files
Published - c3ee43584a.pdf
Supplemental Material - c3ee43584a1_si.pdf
Files
Name | Size | Download all |
---|---|---|
md5:861fa4c66f2eb4b6f52b95ff09ce459d
|
809.9 kB | Preview Download |
md5:8bd868e930d4038e0bc1b41d5c2544a8
|
1.5 MB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 46157
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140609-132709772
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-SC0001293
- Resnick Sustainability Institute
- Created
-
2014-06-09Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Resnick Sustainability Institute