Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV18)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.hopv.2018.149
Publication date: 21st February 2018
Ultra-thin solar cells, whether organic or PVK, require photon management to improve light harvesting beyond what is afforded by a single reflection off the bottom electrode. Recently, we have demonstrated a new light trapping strategy with so-called Photonic Fiber Plates (PFP). It consists of a horizontal array of partially overlapping dielectric cylinders, coated on the under side with the solar cell itself [1].
Full-wave simulations show a dramatic difference in the distribution intensity in the PFP compared to disjoined cylinders when excited by a plane wave at normal incidence [2]. In the PFP, the light distribution is reminiscent of Whispering Gallery Modes. To elucidate the electromagnetic field dynamics, ray tracing simulations are conducted. These confirm that a fraction of the ray segments indeed follow Whispering Gallery Mode-type trajectories. However, in addition to that, the ray trajectories are found to follow chaotic paths, with sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Using ray tracing, the ergodic character of the rays is demonstrated numerically. Furthermore, the wave chaos at play in the PFP is shown to be of the intermittent type. In this presentation, we present a full characterisation of this wave chaos, including the resulting entropy production. Conterintuitively, we show that the most chaotic trajectories contribute to a lesser production of entropy than regular ones.
We show experimental results demonstrating the efficiency of the trapping mechanism and further present the case of half-PFP trapping with PVK cells, where good quantitative agreement between simulation and experiment is found. Finally, we discuss modification of the original design that are expected to further enhance the light trapping of the device.
[1] Mariano, M., Rodríguez, F. J., Romero-Gomez, P., Kozyreff, G., & Martorell, J. (2014). Light coupling into the whispering gallery modes of a fiber array thin film solar cell for fixed partial sun tracking. Scientific reports, 4, 4959.
[2] Mariano, M., Kozyreff, G., Gerling, L. G., Romero-Gomez, P., Puigdollers, J., Bravo-Abad, J., & Martorell, J. (2016). Intermittent chaos for ergodic light trapping in a photonic fiber plate. Light: Science & Applications, 5(12), e16216.
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