Maghanga Christopher M, Niklasson Gunnar A, Granqvist Claes G, Mwamburi Mghendi
Department of Engineering Sciences, The Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 534, SE-75121 Uppsala, Sweden.
Appl Opt. 2011 Jul 1;50(19):3296-302. doi: 10.1364/AO.50.003296.
The energy conversion efficiency of a conventional pn junction solar cell decreases as the temperature increases, and this may eventually lead to failures in the photovoltaic system, especially if it uses concentrated solar radiation. In this work, we show that spectrally selective reflector (SSR) surfaces can be important for reducing the heat buildup on passively cooled solar cells. We outline a computational scheme for optimizing DC magnetron-sputtered TiO₂:Nb-based SSRs tailored for silicon solar cells and find good agreement of the reflectance with an experimental realization of the optimal SSR. A figure of merit for SSRs has also been derived and applied to the experimental data.
