Lambertian light trapping in textured solar cells and light‐emitting diodes: analytical solutions

Abstract Light trapping by texturing solar cell surfaces has produced significant gains in solar cell performance over recent decades, particularly for cells based on the relatively weakly absorbing semiconductors, such as crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon–hydrogen alloys. Previous solutions for the properties of the resulting textured optical sheets have been based on approximations valid in the weak absorption limit or have been obtained numerically. Analytical solutions are described for ideal Lambertian light trapping and these results used to deduce simple solutions that apply in other than the weak absorption limit. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.