Solar cell efficiency enhancement using a hemisphere texture containing metal nanostructures

Abstract

One major problem of the conventional solar cells is low conversion efficiency. In this work, we have proposed a new design including hemisphere texturing on top and metallic plasmonic nanostructure under the silicon layer to enhance the optical absorption inside the photosensitive layer. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method has been used to investigate the interaction of light with the proposed structure. The simulation results demonstrated that the designed structure gives rise to 40% light absorption enhancement and 27% solar cell efficiency enhancement compared to a simple cell structure. The hemisphere texturing acts as a light concentrator and results in local electric field enhancement inside the silicon layer, and metallic nanostructure excites the plasmons. By combining the advantages of these two designs, the short circuit of the proposed structure showed more than 65% enhancement compared to the conventional structure.