TY - JOUR
T1 - Enhanced efficiency of Schottky-barrier solar cell with periodically nonhomogeneous indium gallium nitride layer
AU - Anderson, Tom H.
AU - Mackay, Tom G.
AU - Lakhtakia, Akhlesh
N1 - Funding Information:
T.H.A. thanks the Charles Godfrey Binder Endowment for partial financial support during a sixmonth stay at Pennsylvania State University. T.G.M. acknowledges the support of EPSRC Grant No. EP/M018075/1. A.L. thanks the National Science Foundation for partial financial support under Grant No. DMS-1619901, and he is grateful to the Charles Godfrey Binder Endowment for ongoing support of his research.
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - A two-dimensional finite-element model was developed to simulate the optoelectronic performance of a Schottky-barrier solar cell. The heart of this solar cell is a junction between a metal and a layer of n-doped indium gallium nitride (InξGa1-ξN) alloy sandwiched between a reflection-reducing front window and a periodically corrugated metallic back reflector. The bandgap of the InξGa1-ξN layer was varied periodically in the thickness direction by varying the parameter ξ ∈ 0;1. First, the frequency-domain Maxwell postulates were solved to determine the spatial profile of photon absorption and, thus, the generation of electron-hole pairs. The AM1.5G solar spectrum was taken to represent the incident solar flux. Next, the drift-diffusion equations were solved for the steady-state electron and hole densities. Numerical results indicate that a corrugated back reflector of a period of 600 nm is optimal for photon absorption when the InξGa1-ξN layer is homogeneous. The efficiency of a solar cell with a periodically nonhomogeneous InξGa1-ξN layer may be higher by as much as 26.8% compared to the analogous solar cell with a homogeneous InξGa1-ξN layer.
AB - A two-dimensional finite-element model was developed to simulate the optoelectronic performance of a Schottky-barrier solar cell. The heart of this solar cell is a junction between a metal and a layer of n-doped indium gallium nitride (InξGa1-ξN) alloy sandwiched between a reflection-reducing front window and a periodically corrugated metallic back reflector. The bandgap of the InξGa1-ξN layer was varied periodically in the thickness direction by varying the parameter ξ ∈ 0;1. First, the frequency-domain Maxwell postulates were solved to determine the spatial profile of photon absorption and, thus, the generation of electron-hole pairs. The AM1.5G solar spectrum was taken to represent the incident solar flux. Next, the drift-diffusion equations were solved for the steady-state electron and hole densities. Numerical results indicate that a corrugated back reflector of a period of 600 nm is optimal for photon absorption when the InξGa1-ξN layer is homogeneous. The efficiency of a solar cell with a periodically nonhomogeneous InξGa1-ξN layer may be higher by as much as 26.8% compared to the analogous solar cell with a homogeneous InξGa1-ξN layer.
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U2 - 10.1117/1.JPE.7.014502
DO - 10.1117/1.JPE.7.014502
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85013116193
SN - 1947-7988
VL - 7
JO - Journal of Photonics for Energy
JF - Journal of Photonics for Energy
IS - 1
M1 - 14502
ER -