1. The Viability of Organic Dyes in Luminescent Down-Shifting Layers for the Enhancement of Si Solar Cell Efficiency
- Author
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Sarah McCormack, Subhash Chandra, Aaron Glenn, Hoda Akbari, Hind Ahmed, Conor Mc Loughlin, European Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland, and PEDAL: Plasmonic enhancement of advanced luminescent solar devices
- Subjects
Materials science ,Environmental Engineering ,External Quantum Efficiency ,02 engineering and technology ,010402 general chemistry ,01 natural sciences ,7. Clean energy ,Civil Engineering ,Spin-coating ,General Materials Science ,Silicon solar cell ,Spin coating ,Down shifting ,business.industry ,Mechanical Engineering ,Silicon Solar Cell ,Luminescent Down-Shifting Layer ,Lumogen Dye ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Condensed Matter Physics ,0104 chemical sciences ,Solar cell efficiency ,Mechanics of Materials ,Optoelectronics ,Quantum efficiency ,0210 nano-technology ,business ,Luminescence - Abstract
The main energy losses in solar cells are related to spectral losses where high energy photons are not used efficiently, and energy is lost via thermalization which reduces the solar cell’s overall efficiency. A way to tackle this is to introduce a luminescent down-shifting layer (LDS) to convert these high energy photons into a lower energy bracket helping the solar cell to absorb them and thus generating a greater power output. In this paper, lumogen dye Violet 570 has been used as LDS coated films of 10μm and 60μm placed on top of Si solar cells. The dye was incorporated into polymer films of Polyvinyl Butyral (PVB) and Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA) after which they were tested for their absorption, transmission and emission properties. Once optimised layers had been determined, they were deposited directly onto silicon solar cells and the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the Si solar cells were measured with and without the LDS layers. The resulting graphs have shown an increase of up to 2.9% in the overall EQE efficiency after the lumogen films had been applied.
- Published
- 2020
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