Simulation of left-handed materials for GaAs solar cells

Abstract

The optical performance of photovoltaic solar cells and modules is affected by the significant reflection losses at the air/glass front interface. Several antireflection coating materials on solar glass are introduced to overcome this drawback as a mechanism for light trapping. We propose in this study a novel structure containing silicon nitride (SiNx), left-handed materials (LHMs), and the light absorbing material (gallium arsenide, GaAs), to minimize the reflection and increase the light absorption. The transfer matrix method was used to compute the reflectivity and absorption of both normal and transverse magnetic polarized light. The results show that left-handed materials have an available good impact on the efficiency of solar cells by increasing the light absorption through the proposed structure where the absorbance achieves values greater than 80% in the entire light spectrum.