The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 10, 2024
Filed:
Jun. 07, 2022
Vikram Dalal, Ames, IA (US);
David Keogh, San Diego, CA (US);
Vikram Dalal, Ames, IA (US);
David Keogh, San Diego, CA (US);
Pacific Integrated Energy, Inc., San Diego, CA (US);
Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc., Ames, IA (US);
Abstract
Disclosed are embodiments of a thin-film photovoltaic technology including a single-junction crystalline silicon solar cell with a photonic-plasmonic back-reflector structure for lightweight, flexible energy conversion applications. The back-reflector enables high absorption for long-wavelength and near-infrared photons via diffraction and light-concentration, implemented by periodic texturing of the bottom-contact layer by nanoimprint lithography. The thin-film crystalline silicon solar cell is implemented in a heterojunction design with amorphous silicon, where plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is used for all device layers, including a low-temperature crystalline silicon deposition step. Excimer laser crystallization is used to integrate crystalline and amorphous silicon within a monolithic process, where a thin layer of amorphous silicon is converted to a crystalline silicon seed layer prior to deposition of a crystalline silicon absorber layer via PECVD. The crystalline nature of the absorber layer and the back-reflector enable efficiencies higher than what is achievable in other thin-film silicon devices.