The Viability of Organic Dyes in Luminescent Down-Shifting Layers for the Enhancement of Si Solar Cell Efficiency

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.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 995)
• Pages: 71-76
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.995.71
• Online since: June 2020
• Authors: Aaron Glenn*, Conor Mc Loughlin, Hind Ahmed, Hoda Akbari, Subhash Chandra, Sarah McCormack
• Keywords: External Quantum Efficiency, Luminescent Down-Shifting Layer, Lumogen Dye, Silicon Solar Cell, Spin-Coating

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