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 plasm...

In this article, the effect of plasmonics properties of metal nanorods and nanoparticles on solar cell performance were investigated and simulated. Due to the classic solar cell disadvantages, it seems that a plasmonic solar cell is one of these methods. In plasmonic solar cells, because of plasmonic effect, a high electric field builds around metal nanoparticles so that high conversion efficie...

In this paper, a thin-film InP-based solar cell designed and simulated. The proposed InP solar cell has a periodic array of plasmonic back-reflector, which consists of a silver layer and two silver nanowires. The indium tin oxide (ITO) layer also utilized as an anti-reflection coating (ARC) layer on top. The design creates a light-trapping structure by using a plasmonic back-reflector and an an...

We demonstrated plasmonic effects in an inverted tandem polymer solar cell configuration by blending Au nanoparticles (NPs) into the interconnecting layer (ICL) that connects two subcells. Experimental results showed this plasmonic enhanced ICL improves both the top and bottom subcells' efficiency simultaneously by enhancing optical absorption. The presence of Au NPs did not cause electrical ch...

One major problem of the conventional solar cells is low conversion efficiency. In this work, we have proposed a new design including hemisphere texturing on top and metallic plasmonic nanostructure under the silicon layer to enhance the optical absorption inside the photosensitive layer.    The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method has been used to investigate the interaction of light wi...

Nanostructures of noble metal materials have been used in organic solar cells for enhancement of performance and light trapping. In this study, we have introduced branched silver cauliflower-like nanopatterns as sub-wavelength structured metal grating in organic solar cells. Self-assembled fabrication process of branched nanopatterns was carried out on a bio-template of cicada wing nanonipple a...

A comprehensive study of the plasmonic thin-film solar cell with the periodic strip structure is presented in this paper. The finite-difference frequency-domain method is employed to discretize the inhomogeneous wave function for modeling the solar cell. In particular, the hybrid absorbing boundary condition and the one-sided difference scheme are adopted. The parameter extraction methods for t...

nanostructures of noble metal materials have been used in organic solar cells for enhancement of performance and light trapping. in this study, we have introduced branched silver cauliflower-like nanopatterns as sub-wavelength structured metal grating in organic solar cells. self-assembled fabrication process of branched nanopatterns was carried out on a bio-template of cicada wing nanonipple a...

Solar photovoltaics (PV) are emerging as a major alternative energy source. The cost of PV electricity depends on the efficiency of conversion of light to electricity. Despite of steady growth in the efficiency for several decades, little has been achieved to reduce the impact of real-world operating temperatures on this efficiency. Here we demonstrate a highly efficient cooling solution to the...

This study characterized the plasmonic scattering effects of indium nanoparticles (In NPs) on the front surface and silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on the rear surface of a thin silicon solar cell according to external quantum efficiency (EQE) and photovoltaic current-voltage. The EQE response indicates that, at wavelengths of 300 to 800 nm, the ratio of the number of photo-carriers collected to ...