Plasmon-Enhanced Light Absorption in (p-i-n) Junction GaAs Nanowire Solar Cells: An FDTD Simulation Method Study

AbstractA finite-difference time-domain method is developed for studying the plasmon enhancement of light absorption from vertically aligned GaAs nanowire arrays decorated with Au nanoparticles. Vertically aligned GaAs nanowires with a length of 1 µm, a diameter of 100 nm and a periodicity of 165–500 nm are functionalized with Au nanoparticles with a diameter between 30 and 60 nm decorated in the sidewall of the nanowires. The results show that the metal nanoparticles can improve the absorption efficiency through their plasmonic resonances, most significantly within the near-bandgap edge of GaAs. By optimizing the nanoparticle parameters, an absorption enhancement of almost 35% at 800 nm wavelength is achieved. The latter increases the chance of generating more electron–hole pairs, which leads to an increase in the overall efficiency of the solar cell. The proposed structure emerges as a promising material combination for high-efficiency solar cells.

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Enhanced Optical Absorption in Perovskite/Si Tandem Solar Cells with Nanoholes Array

Nanoscale Research Letters ◽

10.1186/s11671-020-03445-3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Yawei Kuang ◽

Yulong Ma ◽

Debao Zhang ◽

Qingzhu Wei ◽

Shuchang Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Cells ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Structural Parameters ◽

Perovskite Solar Cells ◽

Photocurrent Density ◽

Absorption Efficiency ◽

Absorption Enhancement ◽

Tandem Solar Cells ◽

High Absorption Coefficient ◽

Silicon Based

Abstract Perovskite solar cells are used in silicon-based tandem solar cells due to their tunable band gap, high absorption coefficient and low preparation cost. However, the relatively large optical refractive index of bottom silicon, in comparison with that of top perovskite absorber layers, results in significant reflection losses in two-terminal devices. Therefore, light management is crucial to improve photocurrent absorption in the Si bottom cell. In this paper, nanoholes array filled with TiO2 is introduced into bottom cells design. By finite-difference time-domain methods, the absorption efficiency and photocurrent density in the range of 300–1100 nm has been analyzed, and the structural parameters have been also optimized. Our calculations show the photocurrent density which tends to be saturated with the increase in the height of the nanoholes. The absorption enhancement modes of photons at different wavelengths have been analyzed intuitively by the distribution of electric field. These results enable a viable and convenient route toward high efficiency design of perovskite/Si tandem solar cells.

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Enhanced Light Absorption by Facile Patterning of Nano-grating on Mesoporous TiO2 Photoelectrode for Cesium Lead Halide Perovskite Solar Cells

10.21203/rs.3.rs-84465/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sungho Woo ◽

Kang-Pil Kim ◽

Soo Min Kwon ◽

Wook Hyun Kim

Keyword(s):

Solar Cells ◽

Light Absorption ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Low Cost ◽

Perovskite Solar Cells ◽

Absorption Efficiency ◽

Wide Bandgap ◽

Perovskite Material ◽

Light Utilization ◽

Halide Perovskite

Abstract CsPbIBr2, a type of cesium based all-inorganic halide perovskite (CsPe) composition, has been proposed as an alternative perovskite material against the mainstream organic–inorganic hybrid halide perovskite (HPe) materials owing to its exceptional humidity, thermal, temperature, and light stability. However, the low power conversion efficiency (PCE) due to its wide bandgap (2.05 eV) is an obstacle for its application in developing highly efficient solar cells. In this study, facile nanoimprinted one-dimensional grating nanopattern (1D GNP) formation on mesoporous TiO2 (mp-TiO2) photoelectrode has been introduced to improve the effective light utilization for enhancing the performance of CsPbIBr2 perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The 1D GNP structure on mp-TiO2 layer can not only increase the light absorption efficiency by diffracting the unabsorbed light into the mp-TiO2 and CsPbIBr2 active layer, but can also increase the charge separation and collection due to the enlarged interfacial contact area between the mp-TiO2 and CsPbIBr2 layers. Consequently, both current density (JSC) and fill factor (FF) of the fabricated cells were improved leading to over 20% improvement in their PCE. Thus, we conclude that this periodic grating structure, fabricated by simple solvent-assisted nanoimprinting, can play an important role in the realization of high-efficiency and low-cost Cs-based PSCs.

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