Abstract
It is well known that transport paths of photocarriers (electrons and holes) before collected by electrodes strongly affect bulk recombination and thus electrical properties of solar cells, including open-circuit voltage and fill factor. For boosting device performance, a general design rule, tailored to arbitrary electron to hole mobility ratio, is proposed to decide the transport paths of photocarriers. Due to a unique ability to localize and concentrate light, plasmonics is explored to manipulate photocarrier transport through spatially redistributing light absorption at the active layer of devices. Without changing the active materials, we conceive a plasmonic-electrical concept, which tunes electrical properties of solar cells via the plasmon-modified optical field distribution, to realize the design rule. Incorporating spectrally and spatially configurable metallic nanostructures, thin-film solar cells are theoretically modelled and experimentally fabricated to validate the design rule and verify the plasmonic-tunable electrical properties. The general design rule, together with the plasmonic-electrical effect, contributes to the evolution of emerging photovoltaics.
Highlights
It is well known that transport paths of photocarriers before collected by electrodes strongly affect bulk recombination and electrical properties of solar cells, including open-circuit voltage and fill factor
Light absorption at the active layer of devices will be enhanced, which undoubtedly boosts short-circuit current (Jsc) and power conversion efficiency (PCE)[6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]
According to semiconductor physics, bulk recombination of photocarriers, which is different from light absorption only governed by Maxwell’s equations, has a strong influence on electrical properties of solar cells including open-circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) and even predominantly determines the PCE
Summary
It is well known that transport paths of photocarriers (electrons and holes) before collected by electrodes strongly affect bulk recombination and electrical properties of solar cells, including open-circuit voltage and fill factor. Due to a unique ability to localize and concentrate light, plasmonics is explored to manipulate photocarrier transport through spatially redistributing light absorption at the active layer of devices. According to semiconductor physics, bulk recombination of photocarriers (electrons and holes), which is different from light absorption only governed by Maxwell’s equations, has a strong influence on electrical properties of solar cells including open-circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) and even predominantly determines the PCE. The spatial distribution for excitons (or electron-hole pairs) generation can be plasmonically tunable to optimize photocarrier transport path (or bulk recombination) and electrical properties of solar cells. The design rule and its realization by the plasmonic-electrical effect can serve as a guideline for designing photovoltaic devices
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