Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Contribution of LSP Effect to Light Absorption in Thin-Film Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

  • Published:
Plasmonics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introducing periodic Ag gratings in the rear side of thin-film silicon excites localized surface plasmon (LSP) and Fabry-Perot (FP) effect. These two effects as well as an intrinsic one pass through absorption overlay together and all contribute to the light absorption in silicon. On the basis of electromagnetic field’s linear superposition, the absorptivity caused by LSP effect is separated from the overall absorptivity of a 500-nm-thick silicon and quantized by short current density. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) calculations were performed to obtain the absorptivity of silicon with different Ag grating parameters. The contribution of LSP effect to the light absorption is evaluated by photocurrent ratio and investigated under different Ag grating parameters. It is found that, as LSP effect is excited most intensively, the light absorption of silicon will also be enhanced extremely. By careful design, the overall short current density of silicon is optimized up to 25.4 mA/cm2, where the contribution of LSP effect accounts for 38.6 %. Comparing to 14.5 mA/cm2 for a reference silicon stack, it increases up to almost 75 %. These results may give design suggestions in implementation of plasmonic solar cell as high efficiency devices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Technology roadmap: solar photovoltaic energy-2014 edition. International Energy Agency. 2014, http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/

  2. Panasonic HIT® solar cell achieves world’s highest energy conversion efficiency of 25.6% at research level. Panasonic press release, 2014. http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/2014/04/en1404104/en140410-4.html

  3. Spinelli P, Polman A (2014) Light trapping in thin crystalline Si solar cells using surface mie scatterers. IEEE J Photovoltaics 4:554–559

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Nam WJ, Fischer D, Gray Z, Nguyen N, Ji L, Neidich D, Fonash SJ (2015) 30% increase in available photons per cell area using nanoelement array light trapping in 700-nm-Thick nc-Si solar cells. IEEE J Photovoltaics 5:28–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Sun C, Wang XQ (2015) Efficient light trapping structures of thin film silicon solar cells based on silver nanoparticle arrays. Plasmonics 10:1307–1314

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Atwater HA, Polman A (2010) Plasmonics for improved photovoltaic devices. Nat Mater 9:205–213

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Deceglie MG, Ferry VE, Alivisatos AP, Atwater HA (2012) Design of nanostructured solar cells using coupled optical and electrical modeling. Nano Lett 12:2894–2900

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Kosten ED, Newman BK, Lloyd JV, Polman A, Atwater HA (2015) Limiting light escape angle in silicon photovoltaics: ideal and realistic cells. IEEE J Photovoltaics 5:61–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Pala RA, White J, Barnard E, Liu J, Brongersma ML (2009) Design of plasmonic thin-film solar cells with broadband absorption enhancements. Adv Mater 21:3504–3509

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Wen L, Sun FH, Chen Q (2014) Cascading metallic gratings for broadband absorption enhancement in ultrathin plasmonic solar cells. Appl Phys Lett 104:151106

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Meng XQ, Drouard E, Gomard G, Peretti R, Fave A, Seassal C (2012) Combined front and back diffraction gratings for broad band light trapping in thin film solar cell. Opt Express 20:A560–A571

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Xing K, Wang Z, Yu ZF, Liu V, Cui Y, Fan SH (2012) Absorption enhancement in ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells with antireflection and light-trapping nanocone gratings. Nano Lett 12:1616–1619

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Bermel P, Luo CY, Zeng LR, Kimerling LC, Joannopoulos JD (2007) Improving thin-film crystalline silicon solar cell efficiencies with photonic crystals. Opt Express 15:16986–17000

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Oskooi AF, Roundy D, Ibanescu M, Bermel P, Joannopoulos JD, Johnson SG (2010) MEEP: a flexible freesoftware package for electromagnetic simulations by the FDTD method. Comput Phys Commun 181:687–702

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Palik ED, Ghosh G (1985) Handbook of optical constants of solids. Academic, New York

    Google Scholar 

  16. Spinelli P, Ferry VE, Groep J, Lare M, Verschuuren MA, Schropp REI, Atwater HA, Polman A (2012) Plasmonic light trapping in thin-film Si solar cells. J Opt 14:024002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Dragoman M, Dragoman D (2008) Plasmonics: applications to nanoscale terahertz and optical devices. Prog Quantum Electron 32:1–41

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Joannopoulos JD, Johnson SG, Winn JN, Meade RD (2008) Photonic crystals: molding the flow of light, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kong A (1986) Electromagnetic wave theory. Wiley, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  20. ASTMG173-03, Standard Tables for Reference Solar Spectral Irradiances: Direct Normal and Hemispherical on 37 degree Tilted Surface .ASTM International:West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, 2005

  21. Theuring M, Wang PH, Vehse M, Steenhoff V, Maydell K, Agert C, Brolo AG (2014) Comparison of Ag and SiO2 nanoparticles for light trapping applications in silicon thin film solar cells. J Phys Chem Lett 5:3302–3306

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the research and innovation project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (No.14YZ162) and Shanghai university young teachers training project (No.14AZ20). The authors would like to thank Dr. Ardavan Oskooi from MIT for his help of suggestions on program debugging.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Dianji University, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Lei Rao & Ming Li

  2. Department of Computer science, Shanghai Dianji University, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Chun-Lei Ji

Authors
  1. Lei Rao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Chun-Lei Ji
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ming Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lei Rao.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rao, L., Ji, CL. & Li, M. Contribution of LSP Effect to Light Absorption in Thin-Film Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells. Plasmonics 12, 229–235 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-016-0254-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-016-0254-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation