5.3. Back surface field (Bragg׳s reflector)
The main limitation of thin film solar cell is that the light photons do not stay trapped inside the solar cell for a long time when the thickness of absorber layer becomes less than the wavelength of light photons. In order to increase the optical path length of light photons, various light trapping techniques are used; such as, using a highly efficient reflector on the back of solar cell and texturing the back surface so that light photons reflect many times or stay trapped inside for a longer time. When radiation falls perpendicular to the device, optical path length is equal to the thickness of material and some photons may not get trapped. If light falls at some angle on the rear surface rather than perpendicular then optical path length increases and light gets totally reflected and stay trapped for a longer time and recombination of photons at back surface get reduced [5]. Fig. 8 shows the back surface field or grating pattern in Si thin film solar cell [47] and [48]. Mainly heavily doped Al and Ag particles are used for making back surface. In super substrate configuration metallic layer is deposited on a TCO interlayer at back surface which increases the reflection inside the cell by matching the refractive index [49] and [50]. But in the case of substrate configuration, a metallic film is deposited on the absorber layer [51]. The textured Bragg reflector surface was first deposited by using the lithographic method. Now, the low cost self-assembled approach is used.