Design of an ultra-thin silicon solar cell using Localized Surface Plasmonic effects of embedded paired nanoparticles

Abstract

The demand for cheaper and more efficient solar cells is the main reason behind the ongoing research on ultra-thin solar cells. In this research work, the electric field generated by the surface plasmons effects has been used to design an ultra-thin silicon solar cell. The main idea of this work is the use of paired nanoparticles with both the same and different radiuses. At first, a cell with one nanoparticle in embedded and non-embedded forms is designed and photocurrents of 11.52 and 20.87 mA/cm2 are obtained, respectively. In the case of paired nanoparticles, the photocurrents of 11.9 and 21.68 mA/cm2 are obtained for embedded and non-embedded cases, respectively. These values are 11.89 and 21.84 mA/cm2 for paired nanoparticles with different radiuses. Our simulated results show that embedded nanoparticles significantly improve the photocurrent of an ultra-thin silicon solar cell. This approach and obtained results are applicable to various cell, thicknesses, and shapes of nanoparticles.