Hybrid silver nanoparticle and transparent conductive oxide structure for silicon solar cell applications

Abstract

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) have been widely used as electrodes for various solar cell structures. For heterojunction silicon wafer solar cells, the front TCO layer not only serves as a top electrode (by enhancing the lateral conductance of the underlying amorphous silicon film), but also as an antireflection coating. These requirements make it difficult to simultaneously achieve excellent conductance and transparency, and thus, only high‐quality indium tin oxide (ITO) has as yet found its way into industrial heterojunction silicon wafer solar cells. In this Letter, we present a cost‐effective hybrid structure consisting of a TCO layer and a silver nano‐particle mesh. This structure enables the separate optimization of the electrical and optical requirements. The silver nanoparticle mesh provides high electrical conductance, while the TCO material is optimized as an antireflection coating. Therefore, this structure allows the use of cost‐effective (and less conductive) TCO materials, such as aluminium‐doped zinc oxide. The performance of the hybrid structure is demonstrated to achieve a similar visible transmission (∼86% in the 380–780 nm range) as an 80 nm thick ITO layer, but with 10 times better lateral conductance. The presented hybrid structure thus seems well suited for a variety of photovoltaic devices. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Novel Hybrid Electrode Using Transparent Conductive Oxide and Silver Nanoparticle Mesh for Silicon Solar Cell Applications

“…the silver mesh) provides sufficient lateral conductance for the charge carriers while the optical layer (i.e. the TCO layer) mainly functions as an antireflection coating (but also provides a short-distance lateral conduction path towards the silver mesh) [19]. Hybrid structure B (see Fig.…”

Light Scattering Calculations for Spherical Metallic Nanoparticles (Ag, Au) Coated by TCO (AZO, ITO, PEDOT:PSS) Shell

“…Therefore, the exploitation of LSPR of Ag and Au nanostructures is one of the key approaches to increase the optical absorption, by light trapping, in thin film Si solar cells, organic solar cells, and new-generation solar cells [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 13 , 14 ]. So, several schemes for functional devices incorporating plasmonic Ag and Au nanoparticles were recently proposed [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Generally, this can be achieved by the scattering of light, by the metal nanoparticles, at the cell’s interfaces, either by transmission at the top interfaces or by reflection at the rear ones [ 34 ].…”

“…For specific resulting performances, so, the system needs to be geometrically optimized to maximize scattering and minimize light absorption within the metal nanoparticles across the wavelength range of interest. In solar cell applications, the Ag or Au nanoparticles are usually supported on or embedded in a thin transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. TCOs are widely used as transparent electrodes for a variety of solar cell devices [ 35 ].…”

“…For example, in heterojunction Si wafer solar cells, TCO layers are used for carrier transport and provide good antireflection component. For these applications, thus, it is a challenge to optimize both the electrical and the optical performances of TCOs [ 17 ]. Indium tin oxide (ITO) is the most-used TCO material for solar cells, due to its excellent electrical and optical properties [ 35 ].…”

Surface texturing studies of bilayer transparent conductive oxide (TCO) structures as front electrode for thin-film silicon solar cells

“…Different structures have been proposed in the literature for improving the electrical performance of the front electrode, such as oxide/metal/oxide stacks [9][10][11][12][13], novel metal mesh substrate [14,15], laser-textured ITO films [16] and ITO/AZO bilayer films [17][18][19][20]. The oxide/metal/oxide stacks (e.g., AZO/Ag/AZO) were prepared by inserting a very thin metallic layer between the AZO layers.…”