Abstract
Surface plasmons, which exist along the interface of a metal and a dielectric, have been proposed as an efficient alternative method for light trapping in solar cells during the past ten years. With unique properties such as superior light scattering, optical trapping, guide mode coupling, near field concentration, and hot-electron generation, metallic nanoparticles or nanostructures can be tailored to a certain geometric design to enhance solar cell conversion efficiency and to reduce the material costs. In this article, we review current approaches on different kinds of solar cells, such as crystalline silicon (c-Si) and amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film solar cells, organic solar cells, nanowire array solar cells, and single nanowire solar cells.
Highlights
Surface plasmons (SPs) are collective oscillations of free electrons localized at the interfaces of a metal and a dielectric
In 2012, we performed a systematic numerical study to characterize the tradeoffs between plasmonic enhancement and optical loss in periodically aligned, silicon nanowire (Si NW) arrays integrated with a silver back reflector (Ag BR) [55]
Surface plasmons in Au and Ag nanostructures can transfer energies between approximately 1 eV and 4 eV to hot electrons. If those hot electrons could be efficiently extracted from the metal via internal photoemission (IPE) across a metal-semiconductor Schottky junction, this could open up an alternative photocurrent mechanism for solar cells
Summary
Surface plasmons (SPs) are collective oscillations of free electrons localized at the interfaces of a metal and a dielectric. SPs are light waves that are trapped on the surface of metals due to their interaction with the free electrons of the metals. The free electrons respond collectively by oscillating in resonance with the light wave Such a resonant interaction constitutes SPs and gives rise to their unique properties [4,5]. The beneficial effects associated with surface plasmon resonance in photovoltaics include superior light scattering by metallic nanoparticles, enhancement of the local field in semiconductors, optical coupling of the incident light to waveguide modes, as well as hot-electron generation in metallic nanoparticles [13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. The current status of development of SPs into a variety of solar cells is summarized
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