Improvement of light trapping in thin-film silicon solar cells by combining periodic and random interfaces

The concept of photonic random textures for application as a light-trapping scheme in thin-film solar cells is introduced. Those textures consist of a randomly textured interface, as commonly applied in thin-film solar cells, which is superimposed with a two-dimensional grating structure. The light-scattering properties of those textures are investigated by scalar scattering theory for transmission into the absorber layer and reflection at the back contact. A quantity to describe the light-trapping efficiency is derived and verified by rigorous diffraction theory. The photonic random textures outperform the random textures and the grating structures significantly.

Analysis of Two-Layered Random Interfaces for Two Dimensional Widom-Rowlinson's Model

The statistical behaviors of two-layered random-phase interfaces in two-dimensional Widom-Rowlinson's model are investigated. The phase interfaces separate two coexisting phases of the lattice Widom-Rowlinson model; when the chemical potentialμof the model is large enough, the convergence of the probability distributions which describe the fluctuations of the phase interfaces is studied. In this paper, the backbones of interfaces are introduced in the model, and the corresponding polymer chains and cluster expansions are developed and analyzed for the polymer weights. And the existence of the free energy for two-layered random-phase interfaces of the two-dimensional Widom-Rowlinson model is given.

Effect of Interface Geometry on Fracture Parameters at Corrugated Interface

Interfaces are ubiquitous in both natural and synthetic structural materials. Materials ultimate performance is often determined by interfacial properties (as a weak link). One aspect that is expected to substantially affect crack propagation at interfaces is interfacial geometry. Several works were devoted to the investigation of surface pretreatment influence on the fracture parameters and adhesive strength [1–4]. They showed substantial effect of interfacial micro- and nano-roughness on fracture toughness. However, the experiments to date were performed on random interfaces and it was often difficult to separate chemical and geometric effects.