Enhanced optical absorption of AlxGa1-xAs nanoarrays with variable Al composition structure for solar cell applications

In this study, various variable Al composition nanoarray structures are proposed and designed to achieve highefficient light capture. The COMSOL Multi-physics package based on finite element method is utilized to investigate the optical absorption performance of cylinder, circular frustum and inverted circular frustum nanoarray structures. The effects of different geometric diameters, sub-layer thickness distribution and Al composition range on the optical properties of various nanostructures are also analyzed in detail. The results show that the designed cylinder structure can obtain optical absorption enhancement of more than 5 % and 3 % compared with the circular frustum and inverted circular frustum structure. Besides, the reasonable design of sub-layer thickness distribution can be selected to allow different nanostructures to obtain effective optical absorption enhancement performance. In addition, the larger Al composition range distribution design can effectively improve the absorption for short-wavelength photons. The design principles proposed in this work will provide a reference for selecting appropriate parameters for solar cell applications.

Automated summary

This study proposed and designed various variable Al composition nanoarray structures to achieve efficient light capture, and used the COMSOL Multi-physics package to investigate their optical absorption performance, analyzing the effects of geometric diameters, sub-layer thickness distribution, and Al composition range. The results showed that the designed cylinder structure had the highest optical absorption enhancement, and the reasonable design of sub-layer thickness distribution and larger Al composition range distribution could improve the absorption for different wavelength photons.