Ray tracing vs. electromagnetic methods in the analysis of antireflective textured surfaces: A first approach

We investigate the validity of the ray optics approach for the analysis of antireflecting structures used in photovoltaic solar cells. The antireflecting structure is simulated by a periodic grating with triangular profile and the reflected fields are calculated using two methods: one based on the r...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado: 1998
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://bibliotecadigital.exactas.uba.ar/collection/paper/document/paper_00304026_v107_n4_p141_Pla
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_00304026_v107_n4_p141_Pla
Aporte de:
Descripción
Sumario:We investigate the validity of the ray optics approach for the analysis of antireflecting structures used in photovoltaic solar cells. The antireflecting structure is simulated by a periodic grating with triangular profile and the reflected fields are calculated using two methods: one based on the ray optics approach and the other based on rigorous electromagnetic theory. As a first approach to the real problem, we consider a perfect conductive media. The parameter used for the characterisation of the problem is the wavelength to period ratio λ/d. The theoretical analysis presented here shows important discrepancies between the results obtained using the ray tracing approximation and those obtained using a rigorous electromagnetic method, even for small values of λ/d (of the order of 0.1) for which the geometrical optics approach is usually expected to hold.