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- El Daif, O., et al.
(author)
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Front side plasmonic effect on thin silicon epitaxial solar cells
- 2012
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In: Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-0248. ; 104, s. 58-63
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We study the effect of metal nanoparticles, showing localised plasmonic resonances, on the spectrally resolved efficiency of thin film crystalline silicon solar cells. We investigate model structures: silver (Ag) nanodiscs on the surface of epitaxial cells grown on highly doped silicon substrates, with a controlled micron-scale thickness. The cells have no back reflector in order to exclusively study the effect of the front surface on their optical properties. The nanodiscs were deposited through hole-mask colloidal lithography, which is a low-cost, bottom-up and extremely versatile technique. As opposed to many other works, we use as benchmarks both bare silicon cells and cells with a dielectric antireflection coating. We optically observe a resonance showing an absorption increase, found to be controllable by the discs parameters. We also see an increase in short-circuit current with respect to bare cells, but we see a decrease in efficiency with respect to cells with a dielectric antireflection coating, due to losses at short wavelengths. As the material properties are not notably affected by the particles deposition, we show that the main loss mechanisms are an important parasitic absorption in the nanoparticles and destructive interferences.
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2. |
- El Daif, O., et al.
(author)
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Silver nanodiscs for light scattering in thin epitaxial silicon solar cells: Influence of the disc radius
- 2011
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In: Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0272-9172. - 9781627482110 ; 1391, s. 75-80
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The effect of silver nanoparticles showing localised plasmonic resonances on the efficiency of thin film silicon solar cells is studied. Silver (Ag) nanodiscs were deposited on the surface of silicon cells grown on highly doped silicon substrates, through hole-mask colloidal lithography, which is a low-cost and bottom-up technique. The cells have no back reflector in order to exclusively study the effect of the front surface on their properties. Cells with nanoparticles were compared with both bare silicon cells and cells with an antireflection coating. We optically observe a resonance showing an absorption increase controllable by the disc radius. We also see an increase in efficiency with respect to bare cells, but we see a decrease in efficiency with respect to cells with an antireflection coating due to losses at wavelengths below the plasmon resonance. As the material properties are not notably affected by the particles deposition, the loss mechanism is an important absorption in the nanoparticles. We confirm this by numerical simulations.
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3. |
- Mann, J. K., et al.
(author)
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Opportunities in nanometer sized Si wires for PV applications
- 2013
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In: Progress in Materials Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0079-6425. ; 58:8, s. 1361-1387
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Quantum-confined silicon material has been a very active field of research in the years 1990-2000 with the rapid development of opto-electronics. The main application targeted by this research was a light-emitting device (either LED, or laser). In the years 2000-2010, with the emerging need for efficient and cheap photovoltaic devices, new materials, and in particular new silicon-based materials trigger again a special interest. In particular, all-crystalline-Si tandem solar cells where the high-bandgap material is provided by the 2D confinement of excitons in nm-sized nanowires could provide the high-efficiency potential of a tandem device, while taking benefit of the decade-long buildup of knowhow of crystalline silicon material technology (both science and processing). In a first part of this review, we summarize the features described in the relevant literature for the functioning of a photovoltaic device based on Si NWs. This literature shows that from the conceptual point of view such an all-crystalline-Si-tandem solar cell using quantum confined nanowires should be feasible to produce in order to achieve the goal of inexpensive high efficiency (>30%) Si-based solar cells. Keeping the fabrication of efficient photovoltaic devices as driving theme, we review the dense literature of Si nanowires. The literature on the fabrication of nanometer-sized Si nanowires is reviewed in the second part.
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