Plasmonic Solar Cells, a New Way to Enhance Energy Conversion Efficiency: Analysis and Modeling of Effect of Metal Geometry

In this article, the effect of plasmonic properties of metal nanoparticles with different shapes, and moreover, their plasmonic-photonic interaction, on solar cell performance were investigated and simulated. Because of low conversion efficiency and then high cost of solar cells, it is difficult to commercialize and replace them with conventional energy resources. But in recent years, the plasmonic solar cell has been very popular. In this study, it is shown that the enhancement of near-field electromagnetic waves severely affects the generation rate, which handles the carrier’s generation in the solar cell equations and causes alteration of the photocurrent. This means that by manipulating the plasmonic properties of nanoparticles (shape and density) and their interaction with photons in solar cell structure, distribution of electromagnetic fields will be altered. Hence, the optical power related to the poynting vector is changed. So, with the aim of improving the solar cell some important parameters such as alteration of nanoparticle shape and their inter-distance were investigated. Finally, a comparison between traditional solar cells and our improved structure was undertaken.