Comparison of Ag and SiO<sub>2</sub> Nanoparticles for Light Trapping Applications in Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells

Theuring, Martin; Wang, Peng Hui; Vehse, Martin; Steenhoff, Volker; Maydell, Karsten von; Agert, Carsten; Brolo, Alexandre G.

doi:10.1021/jz501674p

Cited by 16 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In fact, regardless of being metal or dielectric, surface texturing induced by these embedded particles can increase light optical path via light diffraction in an angular way. Theuring et al compared a flat Si solar cell with three different structures; Ag nanoparticle based texturing, SiO 2 nanoparticle based texturing and inherent texturing . It was shown that the solar cell efficiency is increased from 6.06% to a value of ≈7% for all three cases.…”

Section: Light Trapping Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Ghobadi

Özbay

2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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throughput and large-scale compatibility. The photoactive material is generally composed of single or multiple semiconductor layers responsible for harvesting solar energy. This harvested solar irradiation can be used to generate electricity using photovoltaic (PV) devices, or it can be converted to chemical energy in the form of hydrogen which is the case for photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC-WS). In both PV and PEC-WS applications, the ultimate goal is to establish an efficient photon capturing and electron collecting scheme to generate a huge number of photocarriers (including electron-hole pairs) with rational carrier dynamics (efficient charge generation, separation, and collection). This means that the device should be optically thick enough to generate high carrier's density and electrically thin enough to collect photogenerated carrier before they recombine. When light impinges a semiconductor surface, a part of the light is reflected back due to the mismatch between the air and the semiconductor layer refractive index. The rest will propagate within the bulk until it is fully absorbed by the semiconductor slab. The optical penetration depth (LPD) is defined as the depth at which the incident power falls to 1/e (≈37%) of its input value. This parameter differs from one semiconductor to another and it depends on the extinction coefficient (κ) of the In both photovoltaic (PV) and photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC-WS) solar conversion devices, the ultimate aim is to design highly efficient, low cost, and large-scale compatible cells. To achieve this goal, the main step is the efficient coupling of light into active layer. This can be obtained in bulkysemiconductor-based designs where the active layer thickness is larger than light penetration depth. However, most low-bandgap semiconductors have a carrier diffusion length much smaller than the light penetration depth. Thus, photogenerated electron-hole pairs will recombine within the semiconductor bulk. Therefore, an efficient design should fully harvest light in dimensions in the order of the carriers' diffusion length to maximize their collection probability. For this aim, in recent years, many studies based on metasurfaces and metamaterials were conducted to obtain broadband and near-unity light absorption in subwavelength ultrathin semiconductor thicknesses. This review summarizes these strategies in five main categories: light trapping based on i) strong interference in planar multilayer cavities, ii) metal nanounits, iii) dielectric units, iv) designed semiconductor units, and v) trapping scaffolds. The review highlights recent studies in which an ultrathin active layer has been coupled to the above-mentioned trapping schemes to maximize the cell optical performance.

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Section: Light Trapping Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Ghobadi

Özbay

2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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“…Backreflectors with different geometrical features [9,10,11,12,13], gratings symmetries [14,15], and periodic and aperiodic configurations [16,17,18,19,20] have been reported. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plasmonic Light Trapping in Thin-Film Solar Cells: Impact of Modeling on Performance Prediction

et al. 2015

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We present a comparative study on numerical models used to predict the absorption enhancement in thin-film solar cells due to the presence of structured back-reflectors exciting, at specific wavelengths, hybrid plasmonic-photonic resonances. To evaluate the effectiveness of the analyzed models, they have been applied in a case study: starting from a U-shaped textured glass thin-film, µc-Si:H solar cells have been successfully fabricated. The fabricated cells, with different intrinsic layer thicknesses, have been morphologically, optically and electrically characterized. The experimental results have been successively compared with the numerical predictions. We have found that, in contrast to basic models based on the underlying schematics of the cell, numerical models taking into account the real morphology of the fabricated device, are able to effectively predict the cells performances in terms of both optical absorption and short-circuit current values.

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“…This energy can either be transferred to the semiconductor layer by near-field coupling or scattered by the NPs towards the active material. 4,5,[9][10][11][12] Previous works have demonstrated photocurrent enhancement for metallic NPs embedded in several types of thin-film cells, including organic solar cells, 13,14 CdTe-based solar cells 15 and silicon solar cells. 16,17 Improved external quantum efficiency (EQE) in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film solar cells have been demonstrated by introducing random silver (Ag) NPs in the solar design.…”

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confidence: 99%

Light trapping in a-Si:H thin film solar cells using silver nanostructures

et al. 2017

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Plasmonic thin film solar cells (modified with metallic nanostructures) often display enhanced light absorption due to surface plasmon resonance (SPR). However, the plasmonic field localization may not be significantly beneficial to improved photocurrent conversion efficiency for all types of cell configurations. For instance, the integration of random metallic nanoparticles (NPs) into thin film solar cells often introduces additional texturing. This texturing might also contribute to enhanced photon-current efficiency. An experimental systematic investigation to decouple both the plasmonic and the texturing contributions is hard to realize for cells modified with randomly deposited metallic nanoparticles. This work presents an experimental and computational investigation of well-defined plasmonic (Ag) nanoparticles, fabricated by nanosphere lithography, integrated to the back contact of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells. The size, shape, periodicity and the vertical position of the Ag nanoparticles were well-controlled. The experimental results suggested that a-Si:H solar cells modified with a periodic arrangement of Ag NPs (700 nm periodicity) fabricated just at the top of the metal contact in the back reflector yields the highest improvement in terms of current density (JSC). Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations also indicated that Ag nanoparticles located at the top of the metal contact in the back reflector is expected to lead to the most efficient light confinement inside the a-Si:H absorber intrinsic layer (i-layer).

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Comparison of Ag and SiO₂ Nanoparticles for Light Trapping Applications in Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells

Cited by 16 publications

References 29 publications

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Plasmonic Light Trapping in Thin-Film Solar Cells: Impact of Modeling on Performance Prediction

Light trapping in a-Si:H thin film solar cells using silver nanostructures

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Comparison of Ag and SiO2 Nanoparticles for Light Trapping Applications in Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells

Cited by 16 publications

References 29 publications

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Plasmonic Light Trapping in Thin-Film Solar Cells: Impact of Modeling on Performance Prediction

Light trapping in a-Si:H thin film solar cells using silver nanostructures

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Comparison of Ag and SiO₂ Nanoparticles for Light Trapping Applications in Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells