Optical enhancement of a-SiH /sub x/ solar cells

The infrared absorption and short-circuit current of solar cells can be significantly improved by optical enhancement. The techniques used to increase the short-circuit current are quite general and can be readily applied to other thin film solar cells. The key to optical enhancement is breaking the planeparallel symmetry of thin film solar cells in order to permit trapping of the incoming light within the semiconductor. In this paper the effects of optical enhancement are evaluated by comparing adjacent enhanced and unenhanced cells.