Absorption enhancement of solar concentrators via new surface photonic designs

Enhancing absorption of solar cells over the solar spectrum is one of the most important ways to improve such devices' performances. In this research, two-dimensional surface photonic designs were suggested to introduce rotationally distributed reciprocal vectors, which will match the guiding modes of the thin planar layer of an active material, and thus to further couple the incident light laterally into the layer. This allows the use of a fewer amount of active materials, increases the devices' angle acceptance, and reduces costs for both fabrication and system installation. © (2010) Trans Tech Publications.