Modeling the front side plasmonics effect in nanotextured silicon surface for thin film solar cells application

Abstract

We report the computational modeling of the front side plasmonics effect arising on gold (Au) nanoparticles array in combination with nanotextured silicon surface for thin film silicon solar cells application. The ultimate efficiency of the optimized silicon nanoholes (SiNH) array textured surface using Au plasmonics effect is 38.58 %, which is 24.01 % greater than SiNH array textured surface without Au plasmonics effect. Furthermore, SiNH array textured surface perform better compared to silicon nanopillar (SiNP) array textured surface for all the parameters studied. The maximum possible short circuit current density and power conversion efficiency of the proposed SiNH array textured surface with Au plasmonics effect are 31.57 mA/cm2 and 25.45 % respectively, which compares favorably well to the computed values of 26.17 mA/cm2 and 21.12 %, respectively for the SiNP array textured surface with Au plasmonics effect.