Influence of back contact roughness on light trapping and plasmonic losses of randomly textured amorphous silicon thin film solar cells

The influence of nanotextured metallic back contacts on light trapping and plasmonic losses of amorphous silicon solar cells was investigated. The optical losses of the back contact are determined by the texture of the metallic back contact and the dielectric constant of the interlayer between the solar cell and the metal back contact. The investigations show that the optical losses are highest if nano features are present at the back contact, while the texture of the front contact which propagates through the layer stack exhibits only a minor effect on the optical losses. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4793415]