ABSTRACT

The thickness of dielectric spacer layer (DSL) plays an important role in performance of plasmonic solar cells. In this work, effect of thickness variation of ITO (indium tin oxide) DSL in silver (Ag) nanospheres/ITO/crystalline silicon(c-Si) structure on forward and backward scattering efficiencies has been investigated. Simulations were carried out using the open-source software MEEP via FDTD method for Ag nanospheres of sizes 50nm, 80nm and 100nm. Maximum forward scattering was observed with 80nm thickness of ITO DSL for all sizes of Ag nanospheres. Transmittance at ITO/c-Si interface and spatial distribution of electric field have been investigated for optimised thickness of ITO DSL. In visible to near infra-red region, maximum transmittance was exhibited by 100nm Ag nanosphere. Enhanced electric field has been observed with increasing size of nanosphere. This study provides us an optimum value of ITO DSL thickness in Ag nanospheres/ITO/c-Si structure to fabricate a photovoltaic device with upgraded efficiency.

摘要

电介质间隔层 (DSL) 的厚度对等离子太阳能电池的性能起着重要作用。在这项工作中，研究了银 (Ag) 纳米球/ITO/晶体硅 (c-Si) 结构中 ITO（氧化铟锡）DSL 的厚度变化对前向和后向散射效率的影响。使用开源软件 MEEP 通过 FDTD 方法对尺寸为 50nm、80nm 和 100nm 的 Ag 纳米球进行了模拟。对于所有尺寸的 Ag 纳米球，使用 80nm 厚度的 ITO DSL 观察到最大前向散射。已经研究了 ITO/c-Si 界面处的透射率和电场的空间分布，以优化 ITO DSL 的厚度。在可见至近红外区域，100nm Ag纳米球表现出最大透射率。随着纳米球尺寸的增加，已观察到增强的电场。本研究为我们提供了 Ag 纳米球/ITO/c-Si 结构中 ITO DSL 厚度的最佳值，以制造效率更高的光伏器件。