6533b873fe1ef96bd12d58ce
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Plasmonic and diffractive nanostructures for light trapping—an experimental comparison
Isodiana CrupiManuel J. MendesMaddalena PatriniThomas F. KraussChristian Stefano SchusterLiam LewisSeweryn MorawiecEmiliano R. Martinssubject
Amorphous siliconMaterials scienceNanostructureNanostructureSubwavelength structuresbusiness.industryPhysics::OpticsDiffraction gratingPlasmonicSubwavelength structureSettore ING-INF/01 - ElettronicaAtomic and Molecular Physics and OpticsElectronic Optical and Magnetic Materialschemistry.chemical_compoundOpticsSolar cell efficiencychemistryOptoelectronicsPlasmonic solar cellThin filmbusinessAbsorption (electromagnetic radiation)Diffraction gratingPhotovoltaicPlasmondescription
Metal nanoparticles and diffractive nanostructures are widely studied for enhancing light trapping efficiency in thin-film solar cells. Both have achieved high performance enhancements, but there are very few direct comparisons between the two. Also, it is difficult to accurately determine the parasitic absorption of metal nanoparticles. Here, we assess the light trapping efficiencies of both approaches in an identical absorber configuration. We use a 240 nm thick amorphous silicon slab as the absorber layer and either a quasi-random supercell diffractive nanostructure or a layer of self-assembled metal nanoparticles for light trapping. Both the plasmonic and diffractive structures strongly enhance the absorption in the red/near-infrared regime. At longer wavelengths, however, parasitic absorption becomes evident in the metal nanoparticles, which reduces the overall performance of the plasmonic approach. We have formulated a simple analytical model to assess the parasitic absorption and effective reflectivity of a plasmonic reflector and to demonstrate good agreement with the experimental data.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-02-26 |