Photonic structures for high efficiency, low cost solar cells

The development of low cost, high efficiency thin-film solar cells is the key to reducing the cost of photovoltaics to a level where it can compete with conventional fossil fuels. This project proposes the development of novel high efficiency silicon solar cell designs that use photonic structures to direct light to regions where it can be most usefully absorbed, manipulate its speed of propagation, and directly alter the local electronic properties of the silicon. The project is also expected to lead to new approaches for fabricating these photonic structures on solar cells at low cost using self-assembly techniques.