Category Archives: SPRAY

CODE, BREIN, SCOUT, SPRAY, FAQ, Start-up

MSVCP120.DLL is missing …

If you try to run CODE, SCOUT or SPRAY with object generation 4.50 or higher and you get this message please install the Visual C++ Redistributable package for Visual Studio 2013. Here is the link:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784

If you follow the ‘Download’ section you have to select the vcredist_x86.exe. Running this will install the required DLL files.

SPRAY

New object computing absorption spectra

We have implemented a new type of detector: Objects of type ‘Absorbing material’ count rays which are absorbed in a selected material. After the ray-tracing the counts are normalized to the number of emitted rays. This results in an absorption spectrum.

Objects of this type can be used to measure absorption of light in objects which have a complex shape, like a silicon wafer with textured surfaces.

SPRAY

New wafer object

 

With SPRAY version 2.53 we have introduced a new geometric object called ‘wafer’ which represents a silicon wafer to be used in a solar cell. The wafer has a cylindrical base shape and is cut at the sides:

wafer

The bottom surface is textured with shapes that have been available in previous versions of SPRAY already.

The top surface can be textured the same way or using a new mechanism: In order to approach realistic textures you can now superimpose two textures which may have different shapes and periodicities. This opens a large variety of surface patterns (see examples below).

“Uniform” pyramids

A surface texture of regular pyramids of one and the same size looks like this (for an inclination angle of 54°):

wafer_pyramids_54

The reflectance spectrum in the spectral range 400 … 800 nm is this:

wafer_pyramids_54_spectrum

Average reflectance is 13.8%.

“Non-uniform” pyramids

Big and small pyramids (with different heights and periodicities) mixed together:

wafer_pyramids_small_large

 

Reflectance of this texture:

wafer_pyramids_small_large_spectrum

Average in the range 400 … 800 nm: 13.2%

Big and medium sized pyramids mixed together – this looks quite realistic:

wafer_pyramids_medium_large

 

The reflectance of this kind of texture is this:

wafer_pyramids_medium_large_spectrum

Average reflectance: 13.0%

You may assign different layer stacks to the bottom, side and top surfaces of the wafer object. This way you can introduce AR coatings on top which are not deposited at the sides and below.