Design and fabrication of a diffractive optical element as a spectrum-splitting solar concentrator for lateral multijunction solar cells

We have designed a single thin planar diffractive optical element ( DOE) based on the principle of diffractive optics to simultaneously split and concentrate the incident light into several energy ranges for lateral multijunction solar cells. A prototype with the maximum thickness of 6.95 mu m and 32 quantized levels in depth was fabricated by photolithographic technology. The spectrum-splitting and concentrating performance of the prototype, which were measured quantitatively, show good agreement with the simulation results. As mass production of a DOE can be produced by imprint technology, our design provides a feasible means for low-cost, large-scale, and high-efficiency photovoltaic applications. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America