Hyperuniform disorder boosts light trapping in ultrathin silicon solar cells

Check out our latest publication in ACS Photonics! Ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells are light, flexible and use far less material, but they absorb near-infrared light poorly. In this work, we integrate hyperuniform disordered nanopatterns into 4.8 μm thick c-Si solar cells. These patterns combine the long-range uniformity of periodic structures with the broadband scattering of random ones. Because their spatial frequencies form a continuous band rather than discrete diffraction orders, they couple near-infrared light into guided modes over a broad spectral range. Congratulations to first author Alex! Many thanks to Esther Alarcon-Llado (AMOLF), Mark Brongersma (Stanford) and Marian Florescu (Southampton) for the great collaboration!

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