Modeling luminescent coupling in multi-junction solar cells: Perovskite Silicon tandem case study

TL;DR

This paper develops a model for luminescent coupling in multi-junction solar cells, specifically analyzing how nanostructuring impacts this effect in perovskite-silicon tandems, affecting efficiency optimization.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive framework for modeling luminescent coupling in nanostructured multi-junction solar cells, highlighting its importance in device optimization.

Findings

Nanostructuring reduces reflection losses in tandem cells.

Nanostructuring decreases luminescent coupling, increasing light emission.

Modeling luminescent coupling is crucial for optimizing multi-junction solar cell performance.

Abstract

Luminescent coupling is a characteristic of multi-junction solar cells which has often been neglected in models of their performance. The effect describes the absorption of light emitted from a higher band gap semiconductor by a lower band gap semiconductor. In this way, light which might have been lost can be utilized for current generation. We present a framework for modeling this effect in both planar layer stacks and devices with periodic nanostructuring. As a case study, we evaluate how luminescent coupling is affected by the inclusion of nanostructuring in a perovskite silicon tandem solar cell. We find that nanostructuring, while reducing the reflection loss for tandem solar cells also reduces the luminescent coupling, allowing more light to be emitted to the surroundings, when compared to planar devices. This highlights the need to include modeling of this effect into optimization schemes in order to find the trade-off between these two effects. The published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3023941.