Speaker
Description
Improving optical absorption in the active layer is one of the key approaches to enhancing solar cell performance. Surface structuring has been recognized as an effective strategy to reduce optical losses and increase light trapping within the absorber layer. This study presents a simulation study of active layer surface structuring for enhanced optical absorption in solar cells using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method. Five surface structures, namely isosceles triangle, inclined triangle, cone, spherical, and cylindrical geometries, were investigated and compared with a conventional flat surface for silicon (Si) and cadmium selenide (CdSe) active layers. Optical absorption was determined from the simulated reflection and transmission spectra. The simulation results show that the influence of surface structuring depends strongly on the active layer material. For Si, the cone structure exhibited the highest total absorbance of 59.38%, representing a significant improvement compared with the flat surface (34.57%). In contrast, the inclined triangular structure achieved the highest total absorbance for CdSe (90.37%), followed closely by the isosceles triangular structure (90.13%), compared with 77.97% for the flat configuration. These findings demonstrate that appropriate surface structuring can substantially enhance optical absorption and provide useful insights for the design and optimization of high-performance solar cells.
