Combined plasmonic and dielectric rear reflectors for enhanced photocurrent in solar cells

Basch, Angelika; Beck, Fiona J.; Söderström, T.; Varlamov, Sergey; Catchpole, Kylie

doi:10.1063/1.4729290

Cited by 37 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Ag and Au nanoparticles are the most widely used materials due to their surface plasmon resonances located in the visible range. The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of these metal nanoparticles results in strong light trapping and strongly enhanced near-field electric field distributions around the particle [25][26][27][28][29][30]. In previously reported arrays of silicon nanobowl arrays (SNBs) embedded with metal nanoparticles [31], the overall absorption loss is high due to serious light-decay in metal nanoparticles, leading to low power conversion efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface Plasmon Enhanced Light Trapping in Metal/Silicon Nanobowl Arrays for Thin Film Photovoltaics

Sun

Wang

et al. 2017

Journal of Nanomaterials

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Enhancing the light absorption in thin film silicon solar cells with nanophotonic and plasmonic structures is important for the realization of high efficiency solar cells with significant cost reduction. In this work, we investigate periodic arrays of conformal metal/silicon nanobowl arrays (MSNBs) for light trapping applications in silicon solar cells. They exhibited excellent lightharvesting ability across a wide range of wavelengths up to infrared regimes. The optimized structure (MSNBsH) covered by SiO 2 passivation layer and hemisphere Ag back reflection layer has a maximal short-circuit density ( sc ) 25.5 mA/cm 2 , which is about 88.8% higher than flat structure counterpart, and the light-conversion efficiency ( ) is increased two times from 6.3% to 12.6%. The double-side textures offer a promising approach to high efficiency ultrathin silicon solar cells.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface Plasmon Enhanced Light Trapping in Metal/Silicon Nanobowl Arrays for Thin Film Photovoltaics

Sun

Wang

et al. 2017

Journal of Nanomaterials

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“…Essentially, the narrowband perfect absorption is relatively easy to implement due to the fact that the confinement of photons at a specific wavelength can be achieved using various optical phenomena. These include guided mode resonances [2,6,17,[22][23][24], plasmonic resonances [25][26][27][28][29][30][31], slow-light absorption enhancement, photonic density of states (PDOS) engineering in periodic structures [32]. On the other hand, the ultrabroadband absorption can be challenging in the aspect that it is difficult to find an optical phenomenon that can exist consistently over a broad spectral range and contribute to a broadband absorption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Omnidirectional, polarization-independent, ultra-broadband metamaterial perfect absorber using field-penetration and reflected-wave-cancellation

Zhong

Lai

et al. 2016

Opt. Express

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In this work, we present the result of nickel (Ni)-based metamaterial perfect absorbers (MPA) with ultra-broadband close-to-one absorbance. The experimental broadband characteristic is significantly improved over the past effort on metamaterial perfect absorbers. An in-depth physical picture and quantitative analysis is presented to reveal the physical origin of its ultrabroadband nature. The key constituent is the cancellation of the reflected wave using ultra-thin, moderate-extinction metallic films. The ultra-thin metal thickness can reduce the reflection as the optical field penetrates through the metallic films. This leads to minimal reflection at each ultra-thin metal layer, and light is penetrating into the Ni/SiO₂ stacking. More intuitively, when the layer thickness is much smaller than the photon wavelength, the layer is essentially invisible to the photons. This results in absorption in the metal thin-film through penetration while there is minimal reflection by the metal film. More importantly, the experimental evidence for omni-directionality and polarization-insensitivity are established for the proposed design. Detailed measurement is conducted. Due to the ultrathin metal layers and the satisfactory tolerance in dielectric thickness, the broadband absorption has minimal degradation at oblique incidence. Such a wide angle, polarization-insensitive, ultra-broadband MPA can be very promising in the future, and the optical physics using sub-skin-depth metal film can also facilitate miniaturized high-performance nano-photonic devices.

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“…Advanced light trapping is nowadays a very active field, and various photonics concepts can be found in recent literature, as reviewed by Mokkapati and Catchpole [6]. Plasmonics [7], front and back gratings [8], [9], nanowires [10], [11], random textures [12], or combinations [13], [14] are being investigated for various cell technologies, including thin c-Si cells. For the latter, the works presented are, however, usually discussing optical demonstrators, and yet only few c-Si solar cells have been shown [15]- [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micrometer-Thin Crystalline-Silicon Solar Cells Integrating Numerically Optimized 2-D Photonic Crystals

Depauw

Meng

Daïf

et al. 2014

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

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A 2-D photonic crystal was integrated experimentally into a thin-film crystalline-silicon solar cell of 1-µm thickness, after numerical optimization maximizing light absorption in the active material.The photonic crystal boosted the short-circuit current of the cell, but it also damaged its opencircuit voltage and fill factor, which led to an overall decrease in performances. Comparisons between modeled and actual optical behaviors of the cell, and between ideal and actual morphologies, show the global robustness of the nanostructure to experimental deviations, but its particular sensitivity to the conformality of the top coatings and the spread in pattern dimensions, which should not be neglected in the optical model. As for the electrical behavior, the measured internal quantum efficiency shows the strong parasitic absorptions from the transparent conductive oxide and from the back-reflector, as well as the negative impact of the nanopattern on surface passivation. Our exemplifying case, thus, illustrates and experimentally confirms two recommendations for future integration of surface nanostructures for light trapping purposes: 1) the necessity to optimize absorption not for the total stack but for the single active material, and 2) the necessity to avoid damage to the active material by pattern etching.

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Combined plasmonic and dielectric rear reflectors for enhanced photocurrent in solar cells

Cited by 37 publications

References 26 publications

Surface Plasmon Enhanced Light Trapping in Metal/Silicon Nanobowl Arrays for Thin Film Photovoltaics

Surface Plasmon Enhanced Light Trapping in Metal/Silicon Nanobowl Arrays for Thin Film Photovoltaics

Omnidirectional, polarization-independent, ultra-broadband metamaterial perfect absorber using field-penetration and reflected-wave-cancellation

Micrometer-Thin Crystalline-Silicon Solar Cells Integrating Numerically Optimized 2-D Photonic Crystals

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