Ultra-Broadband Directional Scattering by Colloidally Lithographed High-Index Mie Resonant Oligomers and Their Energy-Harvesting Applications

Emerging high-index all-dielectric nanostructures, capable of manipulating light on the subwavelength scale, empower designing and implementing novel antireflection and light-trapping layers in many photonic and optoelectronic devices. However, their performance and practicality are compromised by relatively narrow bandwidths and highly sophisticated fabrications. In this paper, we demonstrate an ultra-broadband (300–1200 nm) directional light scattering strategy using high-index surface silicon oligomer resonators fabricated by a facile, scalable, and low-cost colloidal lithography technique. The exceptional broadband forward scattering stems from a combined effect of strongly intercoupled Mie resonances within the oligomers composed of randomly positioned nanodisks in the visible region and a strong electric mode coupling between the oligomers and the high-index substrate in the red-to-near-infrared region. By implementing this efficient approach in silicon solar cells, the integrated optical reflection loss across the wavelength range 300–1200 nm can be as low as 7%. Consequently, the short-circuit current density determined from the external quantum efficiency of solar cells can be increased to 35.1 from 25.1 mA/cm2, representing an enhancement of 40%, with a demonstrated energy conversion efficiency exceeding 15.0%. The insights in this paper hold great potentials for new classes of light management and steering photonic devices with drastically improved practicality.