Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
We have successfully developed a new light-trapping scheme for solar cells that can enhance the optical path length by more than 104 times using a textured photonic crystal structure as a backside reflector. Top-contacted crystalline Si solar cells integrated with the new back reflector were designed, fabricated and characterized. Both external quantum efficiency and power conversion efficiency of the cells have shown significant improvement due to the path length enhancement furnished by the new back reflector despite of the 675 um thick wafers and relatively short minority carrier diffusion length.