Analysis of photonic structures for silicon solar cells Abstract: Integrating photonic structures into the surface is an established procedure to enhance the energy conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells. This is achieved by increasing the light absorption through reduced surface reflectance or longer light path lengths. The fabrication of random pyramids on monocrystalline and the isotexture on multicrystalline silicon via maskless wet chemical etching is a standard process in the photovoltaic industry. Alternative structure types aim at an absorptance enhancement compared to this state of the art which finally increases the energy conversion efficiency of the device.<br>The analysis within this work covers (i) the development of an efficient simulation formalism for determining the optical properties of silicon solar cells with one or more structured interfaces that can operate in different optical regimes; (ii) the comparison of a large variety of photonic structures and structure combinations with regard to benefits for the solar cell optics; (iii) a further development of the structure fabrication based on nanoimprint lithography and etching focusing on the up scaling capabilities via an increased stamp lifetime and (iv) the demonstration of an efficiency enhancement on solar cell and mini module level via integration of exemplary photonic structures.<br>After ensuring a good agreement between the developed OPTOS simulation formalism and established modeling techniques as well as reference measurements various photonic structures are evaluated. Diffractive rear side gratings are demonstrated to enhance the light trapping properties of 150 μm thick solar cells with planar as well as textured front side reaching photocurrent gains of up to 3.5 mA cm2. The experimental realization of this structure in an electrically planar but optically structured rear interface led to an absolute efficiency increase of 1.1 % and proved the potential of this concept for the first time on solar cell level. The honeycomb texture is found to be clearly superior to the isotexture on multicrystalline silicon substrates. The simulated photocurrent gains of 2.4 mA cm2 on cell level and 1.0 mA cm2 on module level are supported by characterization results of Al BSF and PERC solar cells. Those were fabricated using industrial like processes such as screen printing on the standard size of 156 × 156 mm2. The structuring itself profits strongly from the newly applied temperature assisted imprint process. It enabled a stamp lif ...