Abstract

This paper presents a concept to significantly improve the photocurrent of ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells using plasmonic hemispherical dielectric-metal (core-shell) nanoparticles and backside gratings. The design of three-dimensional spherical and hemispherical arrays of nanoparticles on top of the surface of 0.8 μm crystalline silicon solar cells was simulated using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. We used the FDTD results to investigate the photocurrent by solving the Poisson and drift diffusion equations. The results indicate an enhancement of between 80% and 93% in the photocurrent for cells with hemispherical Ag and Ag–SiO₂ core-shell nanoparticles, respectively, compared to a cell with spherical nanoparticles. In addition, for obtaining a higher photocurrent, triangular gratings were applied on the back side of the absorber and we obtained a photocurrent of $22\mathrm{mA}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$. The simulated results indicate that the proposed structures increase the spectral response of thin-film crystalline silicon solar cells over a solar spectrum in the range of 400 nm–1200 nm. Finally, we investigated photocurrent as a function of incidence light angle and concluded that this approach is applicable to various thicknesses and shapes of nanoparticles.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

Plasmonic effects in ultrathin amorphous silicon solar cells: performance improvements with Ag nanoparticles on the front, the back, and both

Joshua D. Winans, Chanse Hungerford, Krishanu Shome, Lewis J. Rothberg, and Philippe M. Fauchet
Opt. Express 23(3) A92-A105 (2015)

Analysis of the light trapping effect on the performance of silicon-based solar cells: absorption enhancement

Hamid Heidarzadeh, Ali Rostami, Samiye Matloub, Mahboubeh Dolatyari, and Ghassem Rostami
Appl. Opt. 54(12) 3591-3601 (2015)

Biomimetic and plasmonic hybrid light trapping for highly efficient ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells

Y. Zhang, B. Jia, and M. Gu
Opt. Express 24(6) A506-A514 (2016)

Design of nanostructured plasmonic back contacts for thin-film silicon solar cells

Ulrich W. Paetzold, Etienne Moulin, Bart E. Pieters, Reinhard Carius, and Uwe Rau
Opt. Express 19(S6) A1219-A1230 (2011)

Effects of “defective” plasmonic metal nanoparticle arrays on the opto-electronic performance of thin-film solar cells: computational study

Abrar J. Haque, Asif A. Suny, Rifat B. Sultan, Tawseef A. Khan, and Mustafa H. Chowdhury
Appl. Opt. 62(12) 3028-3041 (2023)