A broadband and omnidirectional light-harvesting scheme employing nanospheres on Si solar cells

The optimized nanospheres (NSs) are simulated and then employed as light-harvesting nanostructures on Si solar cells (SCs). Uniformly distributed monolayers of NSs effectively suppress the reflection over the broadband region at the incident angles up to 85 degrees, greatly improving the optical absorption of the SCs. The calculation results indicating significant reflection elimination and strong forward scattering agree with those obtained by experimental measurements, where the devices with NSs exhibit improved external quantum efficiencies by 13% at 800 nm and conversion efficiency by 21.6%. This simple, controllable and scalable fabrication of broadband and omnidirectional light-harvesting nanostructures is desired from the standpoint of practical applicability in SCs. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.