Nanoabsorbers for Semitransparent Photovoltaics

Semitransparent solar cells based on ultrathin nanoabsorbers that allow partial transmission of visible light are attracting interest due to their promising applications in photovoltaic windows. To simultaneously achieve considerable visible transparency and high power conversion efficiency, proper adjustment and spectral engineering of the photoactive materials and functional layers are required. Mainly, the tuning of the thickness and the optoelectronic properties in different nanoabsorber material systems can drastically alter the solar cell device outputs. In this work, we analyze the influence of the nanoabsorber thickness from a selection of conventional semiconductor materials with different absorption coefficients on semitransparent solar cells. Using optical modeling, the design rules related to several characteristics are addressed including the average visible transmission (AVT), photocurrent generation, light utilization efficiency (LUE), color rendering index (CRI).