Plasmonic silicon solar cells: impact of material quality and geometry

Pahud, Céline; Isabella, Olindo; Naqavi, Ali; Haug, Franz‐Josef; Zeman, Miro; Herzig, Hans Peter; Ballif, Christophe

doi:10.1364/oe.21.00a786

Cited by 30 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Subsequently, to calculate the free electron density and free hole density, Poisson's Equation is used: (6) Shockley Read Hall recombination rate (7)(8)(9)(10)(11) [42,43] (15) where ϕ (Electric Potential), p (Hole concentration), and n (Electron concentration) are variables, q (Electron charge), ε (Optical property of the material), c (Initial value for carrier concentration), n i (intrinsic concentration), τ n (Electron life time), τ p (Hole life time), φ 0 (incident photon flux), α, (absorption coefficient of material), μ n (Electron mobility), μ p (Hole mobility), and D n (Electron Diffusivity) are constants.…”

Section: Conflict Of Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, applying a randomly textured layer inside the device is a standard approach to gain more effective scattered rays inside the device [2][3][4][5]. Additionally, introducing a periodic structure as a reflector to enable the increase of light path inside the absorber [6][7][8]; thus enhancing light absorption. Alternatively, scientists have tried to utilize metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) to improve the cell efficiency upon creating a high-intensity localized fields around these MNPs [9][10][11], but unfortunately not much success has been reported yet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A three‐dimensional multiphysics modeling of thin‐film amorphous silicon solar cells

Ghahremani

Fathy

2015

Energy Science & Engineering

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A 3D multiphysics simulation toolbox for thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells has been developed. The simulation is rigorous and is based on developing three modules: first to analyze light propagation using electromagnetic techniques, second to account for charge generation and transportation based on the physics of the semiconductor device, and third including electrode modeling by applying electrostatic techniques. Published results of a P-I-N thin-film amorphous silicon solar cell fabricated on a thick glass and experimentally evaluated was used as a vehicle to validate our 3D multiphysics toolbox and demonstrate its capabilities. The toolbox utilizes COMSOL for solving the partial differential equations describing the three modules, and MATLAB to input data, control the solver, and provides the coupling between the three modules. The developed toolbox was used to investigate both the effect of embedding Metallic Nanoparticles (MNPs) and the impact of defects on the external quantum efficiency. The simulator, besides being rigorous, is suitable to model various types of solar cells (organic, inorganic, thick film, thin film, heterojunction, or plasmonic) as well. 521

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Section: Conflict Of Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A three‐dimensional multiphysics modeling of thin‐film amorphous silicon solar cells

Ghahremani

Fathy

2015

Energy Science & Engineering

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“…They are designed for constructive interference. Random textured or corrugated external/internal interfaces are used to improve scattering , while transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layers are utilized to minimize reflections at interfaces, additionally highly reflective surfaces are used to enhance back reflections. Figure illustrates such enhancing techniques.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High efficiency thin‐film amorphous silicon solar cells

Ghahremani

Fathy

2016

Energy Science & Engineering

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Enhancing light absorption within thin film amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells should lead to higher efficiency. This improvement is typically done using various light trapping techniques such as utilizing textured back reflectors for pronounced light scattering within the cell thus achieving higher absorption. It is believed that embedding metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) inside the structure could increase light scattering. However, embedding MNPs can also cause significant structure defects and pronounced efficiency drop as well -it has been indicated by many experiments that disproved this belief. In search of ways to improve efficiency, we have investigated the impact of MNP's size, and location within the solar cell, in addition to the effect of defects, and doping levels on the overall efficiency. On the basis of our 3D multiphysics (optical-electric) modeling, we developed a design guideline for embedding these MNPs and reducing the impact of defects created in the embedding process. The results of simulations were compared to relevant measured data, and it showed a good agreement. Subsequently, models were used to predict performance, and over 30% improvement in solar cell efficiency (~13% is predicted); which is beyond the state of the art. This was predicted by optimizing the size and location of the MNPs and tailoring the doping levels to have better forward light trapping and absorption. 335

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“…In fact, while previous conclusions have been screened by additional effects or were biased toward a particular approach [23,24,147,148] (with a corresponding loss of generality), using the simplest possible platform enabled me to make a clear and unbiassed comparison of these two light-trapping mechanisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diffractive Optics for Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells

Schuster¹

2017

Springer Theses

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Thin-film silicon solar cells have the potential to convert sunlight into electricity at high efficiency, low cost and without generating pollutants. However, they need to become more competitive with conventional energy technologies by increasing their efficiency.One of the key efficiency limitations of using thin silicon absorber materials relates to the optical loss of low-energy photons, because the absorption coefficient of silicon decreases strongly for these low-energy photons in the red and nearinfrared, such that the absorption length becomes longer than the absorber layer thickness. If, in contrast, the incident light was redirected and trapped into the plane of the silicon slab, a thin-film could absorb as much light as a thick layer.Diffractive textures can not only efficiently scatter the low-energy photons, but are also able to suppress the reflection of the incident sunlight. In order to take advantage of the full benefits that textures can offer, I outline a simple layer transfer technique that allows the structuring of a thin-film independently from both sides, and use absorption measurements to show that structuring on both sides is favourable compared to structuring on one side only. I also introduce a figure-of-merit that can objectively and quantitatively assess the benefit of the structuring itself, which allows me to benchmark state-ofthe-art proposals and to deduce some important design rules. Minimising the parasitic losses, for example, is of critical importance, as the desired scattering properties are directly proportional to these losses. To study the impact of parasitics, I quantify the useful absorption enhancement of two different light trapping mechanisms, i.e. diffractive vs plasmonic, based on a fair and simple experimental comparison. The experiment demonstrates that diffractive light-trapping is a better choice for photovoltaic applications, because plasmonic structures accumulate the parasitical losses by multiple interactions with the trapped light.

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Plasmonic silicon solar cells: impact of material quality and geometry

Cited by 30 publications

References 42 publications

A three‐dimensional multiphysics modeling of thin‐film amorphous silicon solar cells

A three‐dimensional multiphysics modeling of thin‐film amorphous silicon solar cells

High efficiency thin‐film amorphous silicon solar cells

Diffractive Optics for Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells

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