High-efficiency grid-type Si solar cell structure

The demand to reduce Si usage in Si photovoltaic cells in order to improve the cost-effectiveness is ever-increasing in photovoltaic industry. In this study, we propose a new Si photovoltaic cell structure, in which Si grids are formed and reflectors are positioned in between. The optical absorption efficiency of the proposed cell structure was analyzed by making comparisons with simple Si cells with flat and textured surfaces. A quantitative analysis of the optical absorption was made by using a direct absorption calculation algorithm based on the three-dimensional modeling and ray-tracing technique. The proposed grid-type cell structure was shown to be able to yield an improvement in the absorption efficiency per unit Si volume as high as 91% when compared to typical Si cells with pyramidal surface texturing.