Texture: a ray tracing program for the photovoltaic community

Abstract

Increased interest in light-trapping techniques to enhance the output current of silicon solar cells has led to a variety of surface texturing designs. Unfortunately, the inability to quantify and eliminate some of the photon loss mechanisms have not allowed textured cells to reach their full potential. Texture, a Monte Carlo ray-tracing program which is capable of addressing the above issues, has been written. The program has a convenient user interface and a variety of output modes. Different material systems, such as GaAs, InP, and thin films on textured glass, can also be modeled by Texture. It is shown that the output of the Texture program compares quite favorably with results of other researchers under the same assumptions. The program also provides additional quantitative information about photon losses due to the sides of the cell, grid absorption, and imperfect back-surface reflectance. Output results show that tetrahedrons are more effective light-trapping structures than tilted pyramids (40.87 mA compared to 40.37 mA).<>