Exploring the optical properties of front surface texture for thin silicon solar cells using ray tracer

Technological advancement has raised environmental awareness about the current limited energy supply. Concerns about the potential depletion of conventional resources are prompting scientist to pursue numerous studies into alternative energy sources such as solar energy. Due to the strong interest in sustainable energy, the solar cell industry has grown rapidly. It is evident from the principle of converting sunlight into electricity that solar cells play a vital role in converting energy. However, the most significant step in the advancement of solar technology is to create solar cells that extract high amounts of energy efficiently. This research proposes the analysis of surface texture in thin crystalline silicon (c-Si) by examining its potential for implementing in improving the efficiency of solar cells. The experimental design of four textured surfaces with silicon nitride (SiNx) anti-reflection coating is as follows: i) Random Upright Pyramid (Random UP), ii) Random Inverted Pyramid (Random IP), iii) Regular Upright Pyramid (Regular UP) and iv) Regular Inverted Pyramid (Regular IP). These textured surfaces with unique optical properties can be implemented as anti-reflective or light trapping interfaces to reduce optical loss and enhance the efficiency of solar cells. In this work, the Wafer Ray Tracer simulator is used to investigate efficiency improvements in this c-Si solar cells. All textured surfaces showed a significant increase in absorption compared to the planar surface. Among all design, Random IP resulted in the greatest efficiency with the maximum photocurrent density, J max up to 40.96 mA/cm 2 and reached a 18.31% enhancement compared to J max reference c-Si planar surface.