BOTH SURFACE TEXTURED GLASS: A NEW, INNOVATIVE AND EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCES OF SUPERSTRATE TYPE THIN FILM SOLAR CELLS

摘要

Light trapping is one of the major criteria to improve the solar cell performances. In the case of silicon based thin film solar cell texturization of front transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) is one of the practical ways for better light trapping by enhancing optical diffused transmittance and minimizing the reflection losses. A new method is adopted here; glass surface(s) is/are texturized instead of texturing the front TCO and is used in the fabrication of silicon based thin film solar cell. We used two different textured patterns for two different sides of the glass. This textured glass is found to be highly effective in terms of their optical properties. Over 12% and 13% improvement of short circuit current density is noticed in the cell fabricated single junction microcrystalline and amorphous silicon solar cell respectively on both surface textured glass as compared to non-textured glass. Single junction microcrystalline silicon solar cell (with simple p-i-n structure) and amorphous silicon solar cell with initial efficiency of 8.24% and 9.24% respectively are fabricated on this type of glass substrate without using back reflector.