Investigation and Simulation of the Refractive Index Effect on the Plasmonic Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells with Silver Ribbon Nanoplate

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MSc Student, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University (SRTTU)

2 Professor, Nano-photonics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratory (NORLab), Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University (SRTTU)

Abstract

Solar cells have different efficiencies in different weather conditions and environments. Changing the environmental conditions leads to the change in the environmental refractive index. The change in the refractive index affects the efficiency of the solar cell. In this paper, we investigate and model the effect of changing the refractive index of the environment on a silicon solar cell with thickness of 500nm and silver ribbon nano-plates of width 25nm and height 50nm. We study the effect of refractive indices from 1 to 1.6 on the performance of the solar cell. The simulation results show that the best efficiency and absorption of plasmonic solar cell with silver ribbon nano-plates with width 25nm, height 50nm, and period 50nm are obtained in a refractive index of 1.2. The solar cell efficiency and fill factor are respectively evaluated as 12.45% and 83%. Finally, the open circuit voltage and short current density are calculated as 0.21V and 6.91mA/cm2, respectively.

Keywords

References

[1]     Zalevsky, Zeev, and Ibrahim Abdulhalim, Integrated nanophotonic devices, (Elsevier, 2014).
[2]     E. Ghahremanirad, S. Olyaee, and M. Hedayati, “The influence of embedded plasmonic nanostructures on optical absorption of perovskite solar cells”, Photonics, Vol. 6, AN. 37, pp. 1-8, 2019.
[3]     Hung-Yu Lin, Yang Kuo, and Cheng-Yuan Liao, and Yean-Woei Kiang. “Surface plasmon effects in the absorption enhancements of amorphous silicon solar cells with periodical metal nanowall and nanopillar structures”, Optics Express 20(1), A104-18,2012.
[4]     Ghahremanirad, S. Olyaee, and A. Abdollahi Nejand, P. Nazari, V. Ahmadi, and K. Abedi, “Improving the performance of perovskite solar cells using kesterite mesostructure and plasmonic network”, Solar Energy, Vol. 169, pp. 498-504, 2018.
[5]     E. Ghahremanirad, S. Olyaee, and A. Abdollahi.Nejand, V. Ahmadi, and K. Abedi, “Hexagonal array of mesoscopic HTM based perovskite solar cell with embedded plasmonic nanoparticles”, Physica Status Solidi B: Basic Solid State Physics, Vol. 255, No. 3, pp. 1-8, 2018.
[6]     E. Ghahremanirad, A. Bou, S. Olyaee, and J. Bisquert, “Inductive loop in the impedance response of perovskite solar cells explained by surface polarization model”, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 8, No. 7, pp. 1402-1406, 2017.
[7]     Yang Wang, Tianyi Sun, Trilochan Paudel, Yi Zhang, Zhifeng Ren, and Krzysztof Kempa, Metamaterial-Plasmonic Absorber Structure for High Efficiency Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells”, Nano Lett., 2 (1) (2012), pp 440–445.
[8]     S. Olyaee and F. Farhadipour, “Investigation of hybrid Ge QDs/ Si nanowires solar cell with improvement in cell efficiency”, Optica Applicata, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 633-645, 2018.
[9]     S. Olyaee, F. Farhadipour, and E. Ghahremanirad, “Enhanced photovoltaic properties of InAs/GaAs quantum-‎dot intermediate-band solar cells by using cylindrical ‎quantum dots”, Digest Journal of Nanomaterials and Biostructures, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 271-277, 2018.
[10] Vora, Ankit, “Increasing solar energy conversion efficiency in thin film hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells with patterned plasmonic silver nano-disk array”, 2015.
[11] Akimov, Yuriy A., and Wee Shing Koh. “Design of plasmonic nanoparticles for efficient subwavelength light trapping in thin-film solar cells”, Plasmonics 6, No. 1 (2011): 155-161.
[12] Wen, Long, Fuhe Sun, and Qin Chen. “Cascading metallic gratings for broadband absorption enhancement in ultrathin plasmonic solar cells.” Applied Physics Letters 104, no. 15 (2014): 151106.
[13] Reineck, Philipp, George P. Lee, Delia Brick, Matthias Karg, Paul Mulvaney, and Udo Bach. “A solid‐state plasmonic solar cell via metal nanoparticle self‐assembly.” Advanced Materials 24, No. 35 (2012): 4750-4755.
[14] Le Lay, G., B. Aufray, C. Léandri, H. Oughaddou, J-P. Biberian, P. De Padova, M. E. Dávila, B. Ealet, and A. Kara. “Physics and chemistry of silicene nano-ribbons.” Applied Surface Science 256, No. 2 (2009): 524-529.
[15] Warner, Marvin G., and James E. Hutchison. “Linear assemblies of nanoparticles electrostatically organized on DNA scaffolds.” Nature Materials 2, No. 4 (2003): 272.
[16] Lee, Dong Yun, Jonathan T. Pham, Jimmy Lawrence, Cheol Hee Lee, Cassandra Parkos, Todd Emrick, and Alfred J. Crosby. “Macroscopic nanoparticle ribbons and fabrics.” Advanced materials 25, No. 9 (2013): 1248-1253.
[17] Zhang, Debao, Xifeng Yang, Xuekun Hong, Yushen Liu, and Jinfu Feng. “Aluminum nanoparticles enhanced light absorption in silicon solar cell by surface plasmon resonance.” Optical and Quantum Electronics 47, No. 6 (2015): 1421-1427.
[18] Bozhevolnyi, S. I. Plasmonic Nanoguides and Circuits, (Singapore: Pan Stanford, 2009).
[19] G. Barbarino, R. Asmundis, G. Rosa, C. Maximiliano Mollo, S. Russo, and D. Vivolo, “Silicon Photo Multipliers Detectors Operating in Geiger Regime: An Unlimited Device for Future Applications, Photodiodes”, IntechOpen, DOI: 10.5772/21521 (2011).

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 25 December 2018
  • Revise Date: 03 June 2019
  • Accept Date: 24 August 2019

Share

How to cite

Statistics