Light trapping using a dimer of spherical nanoparticles based on titanium nitride for plasmonic solar cells

Abstract

Light-trapping mechanisms with plasmonics are an excellent way to increase the efficiency of photovoltaics. Plasmonic dimer-shaped nanoparticles are effective in light absorption and scatterings, and there is hardly any research on dimer TiN nanoparticle-based PV. This paper demonstrated that titanium nitride could be a suitable substitute for other plasmonic materials in the visible and near-infrared spectrum. We designed a TiN-based spherical dimer plasmonic nanoparticle for photovoltaic applications. We conducted comparison analyses with the metals Ag, Au, and Al to ascertain the performance of TiN as a plasmonic material. Silicon had an average absorption power of ∼19%, and after incorporating TiN nanoparticles, the average absorbed power increased significantly to ∼75% over the whole spectral range. TiN dimer nanoparticle had the highest absorption cross-section, Q ab value ∼6.2 W/m2 greater than Ag, Au, and Al had a fraction of light scattered into the substrate value greater than Au, Al and comparable to Ag. TiN dimer exhibited better absorption enhancement, g for the whole spectral range than Ag, Au, and Al dimers for a radius of 15 nm with a peak value greater than 1. The maximum optical absorption efficiency of the plasmonic TiN nanostructures was ∼ 35.46%.