Thin-film solar cells have the potential to significantly decrease the cost of photovoltaics. Light trapping is particularly critical in such thin-film crystalline silicon solar cells in order to increase light absorption and hence cell efficiency. In this article we investigate the suitability of localized surface plasmons on silver nanoparticles for enhancing the absorbance of silicon solar cells. We find that surface plasmons can increase the spectral response of thin-film cells over almost the entire solar spectrum. At wavelengths close to the band gap of Si we observe a significant enhancement of the absorption for both thin-film and wafer-based structures. We report a sevenfold enhancement for wafer-based cells at = 1200 nm and up to 16-fold enhancement at = 1050 nm for 1.25 m thin silicon-on-insulator ͑SOI͒ cells, and compare the results with a theoretical dipole-waveguide model. We also report a close to 12-fold enhancement in the electroluminescence from ultrathin SOI light-emitting diodes and investigate the effect of varying the particle size on that enhancement.

The scattering from metal nanoparticles near their localized plasmon resonance is a promising way of increasing the light absorption in thin-film solar cells. Enhancements in photocurrent have been observed for a wide range of semiconductors and solar cell configurations. We review experimental and theoretical progress that has been made in recent years, describe the basic mechanisms at work, and provide an outlook on future prospects in this area.

We develop fundamental design principles for increasing the efficiency of solar cells using light trapping by scattering from metal nanoparticles. We show that cylindrical and hemispherical particles lead to much higher path length enhancements than spherical particles, due to enhanced near-field coupling, and that the path length enhancement for an electric point dipole is even higher than the Lambertian value. Silver particles give much higher path length enhancements than gold particles. The scattering cross section of the particles is very sensitive to the thickness of a spacer layer at the substrate, which provides additional tunability in the design of particle arrays.

Rubidium (Rb) is explored as an alternative cation to use in a novel multication method with the formamidinium/methylammonium/cesium (Cs) system to obtain 1.73 eV bangap perovskite cells with negligible hysteresis and steady state efficiency as high as 17.4%. The study shows the beneficial effect of Rb in improving the crystallinity and suppressing defect migration in the perovskite material. The light stability of the cells examined under continuous illumination of 12 h is improved upon the addition of Cs and Rb. After several cycles of 12 h light–dark, the cell retains 90% of its initial efficiency. In parallel, sputtered transparent conducting oxide thin films are developed to be used as both rear and front transparent contacts on quartz substrate with less than 5% parasitic absorption of near infrared wavelengths. Using these developments, semi‐transparent perovskite cells are fabricated with steady state efficiency of up to 16.0% and excellent average transparency of ≈84% between 720 and 1100 nm. In a tandem configuration using a 23.9% silicon cell, 26.4% efficiency (10.4% from the silicon cell) in a mechanically stacked tandem configuration is demonstrated which is very close to the current record for a single junction silicon cell of 26.6%.

The performance of state-of-the-art perovskite solar cells is currently limited by defectinduced recombination at interfaces between the perovskite and the electron and hole transport layers. These defects, most likely under-coordinated Pb and halide ions, must either be removed or passivated if cell efficiencies are to approach their theoretical limit. In this work, we introduce a universal double-side polymer passivation approach using ultrathin poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films. We demonstrate very high-efficiency (~20.8%) perovskite cells with some of the highest open circuit voltages (1.22 V) reported for the same 1.6 eV bandgap. Photoluminescence imaging and transient spectroscopic measurements confirm a significant reduction in non-radiative recombination in the passivated cells, consistent with the voltage increase. Analysis of the molecular interactions between Received: ((will be filled in by the editorial staff)) Revised: ((will be filled in by the editorial staff))

Reducing interface recombination boosts the Voc for perovskite solar cells.

Effective light management is imperative in maintaining high efficiencies as photovoltaic devices become thinner. We demonstrate a simple and effective method of enhancing light trapping in solar cells with thin absorber layers by tuning localized surface plasmons in arrays of Ag nanoparticles. By redshifting the surface plasmon resonances by up to 200 nm, through the modification of the local dielectric environment of the particles, we can increase the optical absorption in an underlying Si wafer fivefold at a wavelength of 1100 nm and enhance the external quantum efficiency of thin Si solar cells by a factor of 2.3 at this wavelength where transmission losses are prevalent. Additionally, by locating the nanoparticles on the rear of the solar cells, we can avoid absorption losses below the resonance wavelength due to interference effects, while still allowing long wavelength light to be coupled into the cell. Results from numerical simulations support the experimental findings and show that the fraction of light backscattered into the cell by nanoparticles located on the rear is comparable to the forward scattering effects of particles on the front. Using nanoparticle self-assembly methods and dielectrics commonly used in photovoltaic fabrication this technology is relevant for application to large-scale photovoltaic devices.

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