1 / 7

Douglas Detert EE235 Prof. Connie Chang March 2, 2009

A brief overview of Plasmonic Nanostructure Design for Efficient Light Coupling into Solar Cells V.E. Ferry, L.A. Sweatlock, D. Pacifici, and H.A. Atwater, Nano Letters , 8 4391. Douglas Detert EE235 Prof. Connie Chang March 2, 2009. Solar Cell Design/Material Considerations.

deirdre-breslin
Download Presentation

Douglas Detert EE235 Prof. Connie Chang March 2, 2009

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. A brief overview ofPlasmonic Nanostructure Design for Efficient Light Coupling into Solar CellsV.E. Ferry, L.A. Sweatlock, D. Pacifici, and H.A. Atwater, Nano Letters, 8 4391 • Douglas Detert • EE235 • Prof. Connie Chang • March 2, 2009

  2. Solar Cell Design/Material Considerations • Conventional solar cells (e.g. Silicon) require thick absorption layers for complete absorption • Thin film solar cells (e.g. CdTe, CIGS) decrease bulk recombination effects and allow for higher quality absorber materials • Problem: Thin film cells are limited by decreased absorption, carrier excitation, and photocurrent • Solution: Texture top/bottom surfaces to enhance light absorption

  3. Barnes. J Opt A-Pure Appl Op 8 S87-S93 (2006) Surface Plasmon Polariton Enhanced Solar Cells • Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) are collective oscillations of free electrons at metal/dielectric boundaries • SPPs are highly localized to interfaces and propagate easily for microns. Energy in SPP modes enhances absorption • Momentum mismatch between incident light and SPPs does not allow for direct excitation of SPPs • Goal: Design a nanostructure back contact that scatters light into SPP mode

  4. Scattering From a Single Groove • Light energy is scattered into two key modes • Photonic (~semiconductor) • SPP (~interface) • Both enhance photoabsorption, but photonic modes are not supported in extremely thin structures Hy

  5. Results: Scattering From a Single Groove • Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations paired with modal decomposition analysis • Three physical effects involved in incoupling efficiencies: • Fabry-Pérot resonance of thin film • Photonic mode excitation at SPP resonance wavelength • Polarization resonance of scatterer • Film thickness and scatterer geometry affect above properties

  6. Effect of Groove Dimensions • Groove width: SPP modes break down at large groove sizes, photonic mode flattens out • Groove depth has little effect on incoupling efficiency • Ridge-like structure: enhances photonic mode

  7. Conclusion & Outlook • Groove-like nanostructures improve photoabsorption in thin film solar cells by coupling light to various modes, including interfacial SPP modes. • Incoupling to SPP modes allows for enhancement in thin film solar cells • To date, solar cells enhanced by SPPs have been fabricated with only top-layer patterning. Pillai et al. JAP101 093105 (2007)

More Related