Abstract
We report on an investigation into the light trapping efficiency for structures of thin film silicon solar cells, with silver nanoparticle arrays at both front and rear surfaces of the cells. The light trapping efficiencies of the structures are quantified by the weighted mean values of the photons absorbed by the silicon layer, over a wavelength range of 400 to 1100 nm. The weighted mean values are calculated under various combinations of the structural parameters for the silver nanoparticle arrays. The results show that efficient light trapping structures of the solar cells can be achieved by carefully choosing the structural parameters of the metal arrays. This great light absorption by the cell is attributed to the effects induced by the surface plasmon excitation of the metal particles. Based on the analyses, we also suggest that the method employed in this work may be a useful tool to probe other similar structures of the solar cells with metal nanoparticle arrays.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 31400718) and the General Project of Scientific Research of Education Department of Liaoning Province of China (Grant L2012444).
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Sun, C., Wang, X. Efficient Light Trapping Structures of Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells Based on Silver Nanoparticle Arrays. Plasmonics 10, 1307–1314 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-015-9934-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-015-9934-1