The design of near-perfect spectrum-selective mirror based on photonic structures for passive cooling of silicon solar cells

Abstract

When exposed to sunlight, crystalline silicon solar cells (CSSC) will not only generate electric energy but are also heated by solar radiation. Such a self-heating effect makes the working temperature of CSSC 20–40◦C higher than that of the ambient temperature, which degrades their efficiency and reliability. The elevated operating temperatures of CSSC are mainly derived from absorbing photons that cannot be converted to electrons. Therefore, it is important to prevent CSSC from absorbing useless solar light to have a better cooling effect. In this paper, photonic structures based spectrum-selective mirror is designed to cool the operating temperatures of CSSC passively. The mirror could make CSSC absorb about 93% of the sunlight in the wavelength range of 0.3 to 1.1 µm and only absorb about 4% of the sunlight in the wavelength range of 1.1 to 2.5 µm. Meanwhile, the design has good compatibility with the radiative cooling strategy. By applying selective-absorptive and radiative cooling strategies, the operating temperature of CSSC could be decreased about 23.2 K and 68.1 K under different meteorological conditions. Moreover, unlike the single radiative cooling strategy, the spectrum-selective mirror also has effective cooling effects in high wind speed meteorological conditions.