Understanding and Advancing Bifacial Thin Film Solar Cells under Dual Illumination

There is a great deal of interest in increasing the energy yield from thin film solar cells by implementing bifacial operation. However, deleterious band bending and high interface recombination at the back transparent electrode can cause problems. Herein, it is investigated how bifacial thin film devices perform when illuminated through the front, back, and simultaneously through both interfaces using numerical modeling. It is shown that the downward band bending near the back interface is reduced during illumination when the carrier concentration is low. This effect is not found when the doping is relatively high, but the minority carrier distribution is still modified. Under either condition, the power generated under bifacial illumination exceeds the sum of the power generated when the illumination is solely from the back or the front. It is also shown that the back‐illuminated device performance is independent of the angle at which the light enters the back of the device, which provides accommodation for scattered light. Finally, the power enhancement is calculated for bifacial devices relative to front‐illuminated devices, and is shown that any significant loss in frontside power generation is difficult to overcome with back illumination under real‐world albedo conditions.