Photon Management in Silicon Photovoltaic Cells: A Critical Review

TL;DR

This paper critically reviews recent advancements in photon management techniques for silicon photovoltaic cells, analyzing their effectiveness, compatibility with various architectures, and potential trade-offs to enhance efficiency.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of recent photon management strategies and offers suggestions for further performance improvements in silicon PV cells.

Findings

Advancements in front and rear side photon management techniques

Analysis of trade-offs like increased surface recombination

Guidelines for improving photon absorption efficiency

Abstract

With the practical efficiency of the silicon photovoltaic (PV) cell approaching its theoretical limit, pushing conversion efficiencies even higher now relies on reducing every type of power loss that can occur within the device. Limiting optical losses is therefore critical and requires effective management of incident photons in terms of how they interact with the device. Ultimately, photon management within a PV cell means engineering the device and constituent materials to maximize photon absorption within the active semiconductor and therefore reduce the number of photons lost through other means, most notably reflection and parasitic absorption. There have been great advancements in the front and the rear side photon management techniques in recent years. This review aims to discuss these advancements and compare the various approaches, not only in terms of increases in photogenerated current, but also their compatibility with different PV cell architectures and potential trade-offs, like increased surface recombination or scalability for high-volume manufacturing. In this review, a comprehensive discussion of a wide variety of the front and the rear side photon management structures are presented with suggestions to improve the already achieved performance further. This review is unique because it not only presents the recent development in photon management techniques, but also offer through analysis of these techniques and pathways to improve further.