Enhancement in Optical Absorption of Plasmonic Solar Cells

Use of surface plasmons in photovoltaics is a recent and fast emerging field of interest of research that exploit the unique optical properties of metallic nano-structures. Using surface plasmons for guiding and localizing light at nanoscales can be used to improve optical absorption in thin-film solar cells. The present work focuses on the study of absorption enhancement using a periodic array of cylindrical silver nanowire placed on a thin silicon substrate. Studies have been made to optimize the particle size and the inter-particle distance for maximum absorption of AM1.5G solar radiation within the substrate. An enhancement with a factor of around 1.32 is observed for nanoparticles with a diameter of 140 nm and an inter-particle distance of 360 nm. Blue-shifting of resonance wavelength with increasing inter-particle distance is observed. FDTD technique has been used for numerical modelling and investigation of plasmonic solar cells.