Aluminum nanoparticles for plasmon-improved coupling of light into silicon

Villesen, T. F.; Uhrenfeldt, Christian; Johansen, Britta; Hansen, J. Lundsgaard; Ulriksen, Hans Ulrik; Larsen, A. Nylandsted

doi:10.1088/0957-4484/23/8/085202

Cited by 53 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Not only is aluminum the third most abundant element in the earth's crust, its d-band lies above the Fermi energy allowing plasmon resonances to be extended from the UV throughout the visible. Plasmon resonances have been demonstrated for a variety of particle geometries including spheres [144][145][146], rods [147,148], discs [149][150][151], and triangles [152,153], and aluminum nanoparticles have already been integrated with a semiconductor to increase energy capture [154]. The general non-use of aluminum nanoparticles as plasmon hosts has been attributed to the lack of reproducibility in particle formation.…”

Section: Looking Towards the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Localized surface plasmons and hot electrons

Marchuk

Willets

2014

Chemical Physics

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Section: Looking Towards the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Localized surface plasmons and hot electrons

Marchuk

Willets

2014

Chemical Physics

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“…First, if the NH arrays were being implemented on the cells front surface as previously suggested, the location of Al's resonance may make it less prone to suffering from destructive interference induced losses than Ag light trapping structures as previously noted with metal nanoparticles. 37 A key cause of the reduced performance seems to be excessive parasitic absorption into the metal at the 800− 900 nm wavelength range as shown in Figure S3(b),(c), which would be less problematic for thicker cells making Al more appealing. Another prospective application for Al with such structures would be with non-Si absorbers.…”

Section: Acs Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Assembled Nanostructured Rear Reflector Designs for Thin-Film Solar Cells

et al. 2015

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To improve the competitiveness of solar cells, cell efficiency must increase and use of materials must be minimized. Light trapping measures can achieve this by allowing cells to absorb a greater fraction of the incident light. Traditional methods like surface texturing can negatively impact the cell's electrical characteristics and are generally unsuited to thin cell types. A plasmonic light trapping structure that avoids such issues can be formed using self-assembled hexagonal arrays of dielectric nanospheres in a continuous metal layer, at the rear surface of a cell. This can be easily fabricated toward the end of cell production, making it suitable for implementation with various solar cell types. 3D finite-difference time-domain simulations were conducted to investigate the potential of such structures, varying parameters including feature size and spacing, metal and absorber material and thickness, and the impact of random variations in the array. Significant improvements were found for a variety of topographies, with a peak increase in photocurrent from 2 μm silicon of 4.02 mA/cm 2 or 24.4%, relative to the case of a standard rear mirror with a 100 nm SiO 2 spacer layer. This also compares favorably to arrays of rear metal nanoparticles that previously yielded promising experimental results. We also identified critical parameters to control when designing such structures. A particular advantage of this structure is that it can offer light trapping advantages similar to those provided by metal nanoparticle arrays while still being able to serve as the rear contact of the cell due to the continuity of the metal layer.

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“…In recent years, an increasing interest in the study of plasmonic photonic crystals (PCs) has been motivated by the potential applications in the design and development of plasmonic photonic-based platforms for the harnessing of light-plasmon interactions for sensing [1][2][3][4][5] and photovoltaic applications [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Plasmonic systems typically consist of metallic structures that support plasmon-polariton excitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%