Research Progress of Plasmonic Nanostructure-Enhanced Photovoltaic Solar Cells

Abstract

Enhancement of the electromagnetic properties of metallic nanostructures constitute an extensive research field related to plasmonics. The latter term is derived from plasmons, which are quanta corresponding to longitudinal waves that are propagating in matter by the collective motion of electrons. Plasmonics are increasingly finding wide application in sensing, microscopy, optical communications, biophotonics, and light trapping enhancement for solar energy conversion. Although the plasmonics field has relatively a short history of development, it has led to substantial advancement in enhancing the absorption of the solar spectrum and charge carrier separation efficiency. Recently, huge developments have been made in understanding the basic parameters and mechanisms governing the application of plasmonics, including the effects of nanoparticles’ size, arrangement, and geometry and how all these factors impact the dielectric field in the surrounding medium of the plasmons. This review article emphasizes recent developments, fundamentals, and fabrication techniques for plasmonic nanostructures while investigating their thermal effects and detailing light-trapping enhancement mechanisms. The mismatch effect of the front and back light grating for optimum light trapping is also discussed. Different arrangements of plasmonic nanostructures in photovoltaics for efficiency enhancement, plasmonics’ limitations, and modeling performance are also deeply explored.

Role of Gold Nanoparticles in Gallium Nitride Growth for Potential Plasmonic Device Applications

“…According to Okamoto et al, noble metallic nanoparticles can enhance photocurrent and light-emitting devices due to the alterations in the electromagnetic fields by the NPs, which propagates in the medium, leaving hot sites that modified the absorption coefficient, emission, and light scattering by the LSPR effects. Furthermore, it has been proved that nanoparticles can significantly improve the performance of photocurrent generator devices based on direct-band semiconductors due to a reduction in the exciton lifetime, promoting the charge separation before the recombination. − …”

Theory of Anisotropic Metal Nanostructures

“…Metal nanocrystals figure prominently in solar-cell technologies, for example, as nanometallic plasmonic structures to enhance the light absorption and efficiency of photovoltaics. − There are numerous applications for nanowire-based transparent conducting films, − including wearable triboelectric generators − heaters, − electromagnetic interference shielding, − wearable health monitoring devices, electronic skin, wearable electronics, electrochromic windows, and touch screens …”

Performance enhancement of thin film solar cells using silver triangular and rectangular grating on the back electrode

“…Therefore, the low fabrication cost beside the proper efficiency are the basic challenges of this generation of solar cells 8 , 9 . Hence various ways, such as plasmonic nanoparticles, 10 , 11 nanostructures, 12 – 14 photonic crystals, 1 , 15 periodic gratings, 1 , 16 and modifying the layers of solar cell, 17 , 18 are used to increase light trapping in the absorber layer. Also, the use of anti-reflective coating layers such as transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layers as the front electrode of the solar cell, due to their high conductivity and good transparency properties can cause more light to enter the solar cell 19 .…”