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Silver Nanoparticles Textured Oxide Thin Films for Surface Plasmon Enhanced Photovoltaic Properties

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Abstract

In this report, Ag nanoparticles were fabricated using the single-step glancing angle deposition (SS-GLAD) technique upon In2O3/TiO2 thin film. Afterward, a detailed analysis was done for the two samples such as In2O3/TiO2 thin film and In2O3/TiO2 thin film/Ag nanoparticles, to inspect the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopy, and electrical properties. The reduction in bandgap energy for the samples of In2O3/TiO2 thin film/Ag nanoparticles (~4.16 eV) in comparison with the In2O3/TiO2 thin film (~4.28 eV) was due to trapped e–h recombination at the oxygen vacancies and electron transmission of Ag to the conduction band of the In2O3/TiO2 thin films. Moreover, under irradiation of photons Ag nanoparticles generated inorganic Ag–O compound attributable to the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Also, a ~90% high transmittance, ~60% and ~25% low reflectance in UV and visible region, fill factor (FF) of 53%, as well as power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.12% was observed for In2O3/TiO2 thin film/Ag nanoparticles than the In2O3/TiO2 thin film. Therefore, the use of Ag nanoparticles textured In2O3/TiO2 thin film–based device is a promising approach for the forthcoming photovoltaic applications.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are acknowledged to Central Instrumentation Centre, Tripura University, INDIA for providing FESEM and EDAX facility. The authors also acknowledged to SAIF, IIT Madras for optical measurement facility. The authors thankful to Dr. B. Saha, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, NIT Agartala, INDIA for providing the XRD measurement facility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Agartala, Jirania, 799046, India

    Amitabha Nath, Naveen Bhati, Jayanta Kumar Rakshit & Mitra Barun Sarkar

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Agartala, Jirania, 799046, India

    Naveen Bhati

  3. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Bikram Kishore Mahajan

  4. Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, National Institute of Technology Agartala, Jirania, 799046, India

    Naveen Bhati & Jayanta Kumar Rakshit

  5. Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India

    Naveen Bhati

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Contributions

Amitabha Nath: methodology, device fabrication, electrical measurements, data analysis, writing—original draft. Naveen Bhati: characterizations and data analysis. Bikram Kishore Mahajan: analysis, writing and editing. Jayanta Kumar Rakshit: validation and editing. Mitra Barun Sarkar: conceptualization, validation, editing and supervision.

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Nath, A., Bhati, N., Mahajan, B.K. et al. Silver Nanoparticles Textured Oxide Thin Films for Surface Plasmon Enhanced Photovoltaic Properties. Plasmonics 17, 193–201 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-021-01509-3

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