Comparison of optical properties of periodic photonic–plasmonic and randomly textured back reflectors for nc-Si solar cells

Abstract Light trapping is essential to harvest long-wavelength red and near-infrared photons in thin film silicon solar cells. Light trapping in p-i-n thin film cells is commonly achieved with back-reflectors, and in n-i-p cells with textured front transparent conductors. We systematically compare the optical properties and performance of randomly roughened back reflectors with periodic plasmonic-photonic back-reflectors in p-i-n solar cells. The randomly textured back reflectors were prepared to have very high diffuse reflectance comparable to the state of the art. The periodic back reflectors of tapered nano-pillars/bumps show enhanced quantum efficiency and optical absorption over randomly structured back reflectors using the same solar cell architecture in nc-Si solar cells. The strong diffraction and light concentration in periodic back reflectors may be more beneficial than the light scattering offered by randomly textured back reflectors.