Investigation on the temperature-dependence of absorption properties of solar cells with micro-structured surfaces

The temperature of a solar cell will increase when it is exposed to the sunlight, which results in variations of optical parameters and thermal expansion coefficient of the cell, thus affecting its spectral absorption feature. This paper is aimed to investigate the effects of temperature on the absorption property of solar cells with micro-structured surfaces. By taking hemispherical, cylindrical and spherical surfaces as models, numerical computation is conducted to obtain spectral distribution of absorptance of such surfaces with different structural parameters by means of the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. Furthermore, the effects of material properties and structural period on the absorption property are also investigated.