Absorption In Thin-film Cells Research Articles

Improving the Efficiency of Thin Film Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell by Changing the Location and Material of Plasmonic Metallic Nanostructures

In this work we present a 3D-finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation of ultra thin amorphous silicon solar cell. The optical generation rate and plasmonic resonance enhance absorption in thin film cell in which silver nanoparticles are imbedded inside the depletion region of p-n junction. Here, the operation of thin film solar cell has been analyzed. Here, by inserting the metal nanoparticles within the active layer in the depletion region of the p-n junction, a new structure has been introduced. We have utilized three different materials, gold, silver and aluminium and the efficiencies of 5.27%, 5.3% and 3.74% have been obtained respectively. The results indicate a significant increase in the efficiency of proposed solar cell with silver nanoparticles.

Enhancement of optical absorption in thin-film solar cells through the excitation of higher-order nanoparticle plasmon modes

Recent research in the rapidly emerging field of plasmonics has shown the potential to significantly enhance light trapping inside thin-film solar cells by using metallic nanoparticles. In this article it is demonstrated the plasmon enhancement of optical absorption in amorphous silicon solar cells by using silver nanoparticles. Based on the analysis of the higher-order surface plasmon modes, it is shown how spectral positions of the surface plasmons affect the plasmonic enhancement of thin-film solar cells. By using the predictive 3D modeling, we investigate the effect of the higher-order modes on that enhancement. Finally, we suggest how to maximize the light trapping and optical absorption in the thin-film cell by optimizing the nanoparticle array parameters, which in turn can be used to fine tune the corresponding surface plasmon modes.