Surface Plasmon Effect of Ag Nanodots Embedded in Amorphous Si Window Layers Deposited on Si Solar Cells

Abstract

We investigated solar cells containing temperature-dependent Ag nanodots embedded in an amorphous Si thin film layer by using hot-wire chemical vapor deposition in order to improve the properties of crystalline Si solar cells. An Ag thin film with a thickness of 10 nm was deposited by DC sputtering followed by annealing at various temperatures ranging from 250 to 850 degrees C for 15 min under N2 gas. As increasing the annealing temperature, the Ag nanodots were enlarged and the photoreflectances of the samples with Ag nanodots were lower than the reference samples in the spectral range of 200-600 nm, demonstrating the plasmon effect of Ag nanodots. The cell properties on photoluminescence spectra, quantum efficiency, and conversion efficiency were measured with the maximum values for the sample annealed at 450 degrees C, indicating that there exists an optimal size of the Ag nanodots about 15-35 nm to be effective on the enhancement of surface plasmon effect.

A Copper nanoparticles-based polymeric spray coating: Nanoshield against Sars-Cov-2

“…Ingle et al 4 showed that metallic nanoparticles (NPs) had a broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity due to their small size and high surface to volume ratio. Further, many NP types, such as silver, 5 copper iodide, 6 and titanium dioxide, 7 interacting with the bacterial cell membrane can inactivate bacterial cells and norovirus surrogates causing release of intracellular substances and cell death, 8 crippling the viral capsid possibly by denaturing its proteins. Few reports are available on antiviral activity of copper nanoparticles, which confirms that copper nanoparticles also possess promising antiviral activity.…”