Ultrathin solar cells with Ag meta-material nanostructure for light absorption enhancement

Poursafar, Jafar; Bashirpour, Mohammad; Kolahdouz, Mohammadreza; Takaloo, Ashkan Vakilipour; Masnadi-Shirazi, Mostafa; Asl-Soleimani, Ebrahim

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2018.03.057

Cited by 25 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Another strategy to intensify the absorption capability of an ultrathin semiconductor layer is the utilization of nanostructured back reflector. These metamirrors could be mainly obtained by nanoparticles or periodically patterned subwavelength units on optically thick reflector . In the case of nanoparticle‐based mirrors, the performance improvement is generally attributed to the scattering property of the plasmonic units.…”

Section: Light Trapping Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, their contribution has been found to be weak, as explained in the previous section. The periodic pattern of nanostructures, such as gratings, patches, grooves, and holes, can significantly improve light absorption . In one of the pioneer studies, a group of researchers in Atwater lab designed a nanogroove based reflector, tiled to be polarization independent .…”

Section: Light Trapping Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Ghobadi

Özbay

2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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throughput and large-scale compatibility. The photoactive material is generally composed of single or multiple semiconductor layers responsible for harvesting solar energy. This harvested solar irradiation can be used to generate electricity using photovoltaic (PV) devices, or it can be converted to chemical energy in the form of hydrogen which is the case for photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC-WS). In both PV and PEC-WS applications, the ultimate goal is to establish an efficient photon capturing and electron collecting scheme to generate a huge number of photocarriers (including electron-hole pairs) with rational carrier dynamics (efficient charge generation, separation, and collection). This means that the device should be optically thick enough to generate high carrier's density and electrically thin enough to collect photogenerated carrier before they recombine. When light impinges a semiconductor surface, a part of the light is reflected back due to the mismatch between the air and the semiconductor layer refractive index. The rest will propagate within the bulk until it is fully absorbed by the semiconductor slab. The optical penetration depth (LPD) is defined as the depth at which the incident power falls to 1/e (≈37%) of its input value. This parameter differs from one semiconductor to another and it depends on the extinction coefficient (κ) of the In both photovoltaic (PV) and photoelectrochemical water splitting (PEC-WS) solar conversion devices, the ultimate aim is to design highly efficient, low cost, and large-scale compatible cells. To achieve this goal, the main step is the efficient coupling of light into active layer. This can be obtained in bulkysemiconductor-based designs where the active layer thickness is larger than light penetration depth. However, most low-bandgap semiconductors have a carrier diffusion length much smaller than the light penetration depth. Thus, photogenerated electron-hole pairs will recombine within the semiconductor bulk. Therefore, an efficient design should fully harvest light in dimensions in the order of the carriers' diffusion length to maximize their collection probability. For this aim, in recent years, many studies based on metasurfaces and metamaterials were conducted to obtain broadband and near-unity light absorption in subwavelength ultrathin semiconductor thicknesses. This review summarizes these strategies in five main categories: light trapping based on i) strong interference in planar multilayer cavities, ii) metal nanounits, iii) dielectric units, iv) designed semiconductor units, and v) trapping scaffolds. The review highlights recent studies in which an ultrathin active layer has been coupled to the above-mentioned trapping schemes to maximize the cell optical performance.

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Section: Light Trapping Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Light Trapping Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Ghobadi

Özbay

2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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“…Furthermore, in order to reduce the Fresnel reflection of a femtosecond laser from the surface of LT-GaAs, as in other optoelectronic devices e.g. solar cells 25 , photodetectors 26 , or light emitting diodes 27 , the antireflection coating (ARC) plays a critical role. The main limitation of a single ARC layer is that the reflected light does not get a second chance of incidence, therefore using a nanostructured layer as a graded-refractive index layer is much appreciated 17,28 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna using Optical Antenna Array of ZnO Nanorods

Bashirpour

Forouzmehr

Hosseininejad

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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An efficient terahertz (THz) photoconductive antenna (PCA), as a major constituent for the generation or detection of THz waves, plays an essential role in bridging microwave-to-photonic gaps. Here, we propose an impressive approach comprising the use of arrayed zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) as an optical nanoantenna over an anti-reflective layer (silicon nitride) in the antenna gap to boost the photocurrent and consequently the THz signal. The numerical approach applied in investigating the optical behavior of the structure, demonstrates a significant field enhancement within the LT-GaAs layer due to the optical antenna performing simultaneously as a concentrator and an antireflector which behaves as a graded-refractive index layer. ZnO NRs have been fabricated on the PCA gap using the hydrothermal method as a simple, low cost and production compatible fabrication method compared to other complex methods used for the optical nanoantennas. Compared to the conventional PCA with a traditional antireflection coating, the measured THz power by time domain spectroscopy (TDS) is increased more than 4 times on average over the 0.1–1.2 THz range.

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“…ER fluids are excited by an electric field (as an external stimulus); also, some changes in their apparent viscosity can significantly affect their rheological properties. It is well known that MR fluid is a group of smart fluids, which alter their rheological properties in response to a magnetic field as external stimuli [8][9][10]. MR fluid initially discovered by Rabinow at the US National Bureau of Standards in 1948 [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical modeling and experimental evaluation of a prototype double-tube Magnetorheological damper

et al. 2019

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The performance of Magnetorheological dampers should be analyzed to study the stability of Magnetorheological fluid and its configuration. To this end, in this study a prototype Magnetorheological fluid is presented. The fluid consists of stabilized Silicone dioxide (SiO 2) nanoparticles, Stearic acid, Phosphoric acid and micron-sized soft ferromagnetic carbonyl iron particles. To assure the authentic performance, sedimentation and magneto-rheometry tests are conducted. Also, a prototype of double-tube Magnetorheological damper with double magnetic components is fabricated by using the mentioned magnetorheological fluid characteristics. Damping force measurement test is carried out to measure the damping force in various electrical currents. The Kwok model is employed to examine the analytical model predictions against the experiments. Furthermore, a general evolution is presented using the neural network algorithm. It is demonstrated that the damping force in saturated current is almost five times higher than in the zero current. In addition, the derived evolution for the damping force has a high performance to predict the response of the Magnetorheological damper in other electrical currents.

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Ultrathin solar cells with Ag meta-material nanostructure for light absorption enhancement

Cited by 25 publications

References 20 publications

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Semiconductor Thin Film Based Metasurfaces and Metamaterials for Photovoltaic and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Applications

Improvement of Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna using Optical Antenna Array of ZnO Nanorods

Mathematical modeling and experimental evaluation of a prototype double-tube Magnetorheological damper

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