Journal ArticleDOI
Broadband enhancement in thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells enabled by nucleated silver nanoparticles.
Xi Chen,Baohua Jia,Jhantu Kumar Saha,Boyuan Cai,Nicholas Stokes,Qi Qiao,Yongqian Wang,Zhengrong Shi,Min Gu +8 more
TLDR
This paper proposes in this paper a novel idea of using nucleated silver nanoparticles to effectively scatter light in a broadband wavelength range to realize pronounced absorption enhancement in the silicon absorbing layer of plasmonic solar cells.Abstract:
Recently plasmonic effects have gained tremendous interest in solar cell research because they are deemed to be able to dramatically boost the efficiency of thin-film solar cells. However, despite of the intensive efforts, the desired broadband enhancement, which is critical for real device performance improvement, has yet been achieved with simple fabrication and integration methods appreciated by the solar industry. We propose in this paper a novel idea of using nucleated silver nanoparticles to effectively scatter light in a broadband wavelength range to realize pronounced absorption enhancement in the silicon absorbing layer. Since it does not require critical patterning, experimentally these tailored nanoparticles were achieved by the simple, low-cost and upscalable wet chemical synthesis method and integrated before the back contact layer of the amorphous silicon thin-film solar cells. The solar cells incorporated with 200 nm nucleated silver nanoparticles at 10% coverage density clearly demonstrate a broadband absorption enhancement and significant superior performance including a 14.3% enhancement in the short-circuit photocurrent density and a 23% enhancement in the energy conversion efficiency, compared with the randomly textured reference cells without nanoparticles. Among the measured plasmonic solar cells the highest efficiency achieved was 8.1%. The significant enhancement is mainly attributed to the broadband light scattering arising from the integration of the tailored nucleated silver nanoparticles.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Nanotechnology-Enabled Energy Harvesting for Self-Powered Micro-/Nanosystems
Zhong Lin Wang,Wenzhuo Wu +1 more
TL;DR: Various approaches for energy harvesting to meet the future demand for self-powered MNSs are covered.
Journal ArticleDOI
Silver Nanoparticles: Synthesis and Application for Nanomedicine
Sang Hun Lee,Bong-Hyun Jun +1 more
TL;DR: This review aimed to present major routes of synthesis of AgNPs, including physical, chemical, and biological synthesis processes, along with discrete physiochemical characteristics of AgNs, and discuss the underlying intricate molecular mechanisms behind their plasmonic properties on mono/bimetallic structures, potential cellular/microbial cytotoxicity, and optoelectronic property.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plasmonic Light Trapping in Thin-film Silicon Solar Cells with Improved Self-Assembled Silver Nanoparticles
TL;DR: It is demonstrated experimentally that a back reflector with plasmonic Ag nanoparticles can provide light-trapping performance comparable to state-of-the-art random textures in n-i-p amorphous silicon solar cells.
Journal ArticleDOI
Efficiency Enhancement of Organic Solar Cells by Using Shape‐Dependent Broadband Plasmonic Absorption in Metallic Nanoparticles
TL;DR: In this article, a combination of Ag nanomaterials of different shapes, including nanoparticles and nanoprisms, is proposed for this purpose, and a wide-band absorption improvement is demonstrated and the short-circuit photocurrent density improves by 17.91%.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plasmonic materials for energy: From physics to applications
TL;DR: The physical mechanisms unique to plasmonic materials, which can be exploited for the existing and emerging applications of Plasmonics for renewable energy technologies, are reviewed in this paper.
References
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Book
Absorption and Scattering of Light by Small Particles
TL;DR: In this paper, a Potpourri of Particles is used to describe surface modes in small Particles and the Angular Dependence of Scattering is shown to be a function of the size of the particles.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plasmonics for improved photovoltaic devices
Harry A. Atwater,Albert Polman +1 more
TL;DR: Recent advances at the intersection of plasmonics and photovoltaics are surveyed and an outlook on the future of solar cells based on these principles is offered.
Journal ArticleDOI
Wet Chemical Synthesis of High Aspect Ratio Cylindrical Gold Nanorods
TL;DR: Gold nanorods with aspect ratios of 4.6 ± 1.2, 13 ± 2, and 18 ± 2.5 are prepared by a seeding growth approach in the presence of an aqueous miceller template.
Journal ArticleDOI
Surface plasmon enhanced silicon solar cells
TL;DR: Pillai and Catchpole this article acknowledge the UNSW Faculty of Engineering Research Scholarship and the support of an Australian Research Council fellowship, which they used to support their work in this article.
Journal ArticleDOI
Design of Plasmonic Thin‐Film Solar Cells with Broadband Absorption Enhancements
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used a two-dimensional, periodic array of Ag strips on a silica-coated Si film supported by a silicon substrate to achieve a 43% enhancement in the short circuit current as compared to a cell without metallic structures.