Abstract
The shape of metallic nanoparticles used to enhance the performance of thin-film solar cells is described by Gielis' superformula and optimized by an evolutionary algorithm. As a result, we have found a lens-like nanoparticle capable of improving the short circuit current density to 19.93 mA/cm2. Compared with a two-scale nanospherical configuration recently reported to synthesize the merits of large and small spheres into a single structure, the optimized nanoparticle enables the solar cell to achieve a further 7.75% improvement in the current density and is much more fabrication friendly due to its simple shape and tolerance to geometrical distortions.
Highlights
For some years, the high costs of silicon materials and fabrication make photovoltaics less competitive with electricity generation from fossil fuels even though it has potential to meet the soaring energy demands nowadays
Remarkable outcomes have been achieved by depositing metallic nanoparticles into the dielectric layer between the Si layer and metallic back surface, by which the light path is optically prolonged as the sunlight can be scattered into the active layer at larger angles and induces extraordinarily strong local field intensity in the vicinity of metallic nanoparticles [2,3,4,5,8]
Since the nanoparticles are periodically deposited and the incident light is normal to the front surface in this study, it is sufficient to restrain the modeling region to a representative volume element (RVE) with periodic boundary conditions applied to its bilateral surfaces parallel with the z axis
Summary
The high costs of silicon materials and fabrication make photovoltaics less competitive with electricity generation from fossil fuels even though it has potential to meet the soaring energy demands nowadays. Remarkable outcomes have been achieved by depositing metallic nanoparticles into the dielectric layer between the Si layer and metallic back surface, by which the light path is optically prolonged as the sunlight can be scattered into the active layer at larger angles and induces extraordinarily strong local field intensity in the vicinity of metallic nanoparticles [2,3,4,5,8]. Such a phenomenon caused by the interaction of light with the nanostructures is termed as plasmon. Not all probable factors associated with thin-film solar cells such as the optical properties of constituting materials and environmental stimuli [6,14] have been thoroughly
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