Silver nanoparticles on conducting electrode: a simple two-step process for realizing plasmonic solar cell design

Abstract

Solar light harvesting cannot be efficiently managed unless and until the contribution of plasmonics in solar cells is fully realized. Such an investigation can be initiated and achieved by incorporating plasmonic nanoscatterers that support surface plasmons: excitations of conduction electrons at the interface/surface. The challenge is to fabricate these plasmonic scatterers in cost-effective method as well as without hampering optical, electrical and topographical properties of underneath layers. Here, in this report, we showed a simple two-step method in fabricating silver nanoparticles on zinc oxide followed by topographic and elemental analysis thereof. Numerical calculation and near-electric field distribution of single silver nanoparticles of different sizes was simulated by finite different time domain (FDTD) analysis. Since the distributed electric flux due to individual nanoparticles is crucial for excitons generation in active layer, such simulation predicts that nanoparticles excited by radiation of lower energy contribute wider electric flux sacrificing the intensity of localized electric field. A typical model was considered and FDTD simulation was carried out to understand the trend of absorption depth profile within the active layer involved in plasmonic solar cell.