A new efficient light-harvesting scheme.
© 2011 EPFL
Nanomoulding of transparent zinc oxide electrodes for efficient light trapping in solar cells.
Nanopatterning has gained tremendous importance in the field of photovoltaics, as absorption of sunlight in solar cells can be enhanced drastically by proper engineering of photonic nanostructures. The group of Prof. Christophe Ballif (PV-LAB - Photovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratory) establish a nanomoulding process that enables precise, large-area, nanoscale patterning of functional zinc oxide films at low cost. They illustrate the application of nanomoulded zinc oxide films as transparent front electrodes in amorphous silicon solar cells, demonstrating excellent initial conversion efficiencies of 10.1%. In the quest to find the most efficient light-harvesting scheme, they anticipate that nanomoulding will catalyse the development and integration of exciting new nanophotonic structures.
Corsin Battaglia et al., Nature Photonics, doi:10.1038/nphoton.2011.198 (2011)