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Plasmonic Light-trapping and Quantum Efficiency Measurements On Nanocrystalline Silicon Solar Cells and Silicon-On-Insulator Devices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Hui Zhao ,
Birol Ozturk ,
Eric A Schiff ,
Baojie Yan ,
Jeff Yang  and
Subhendu Guha
Hui Zhao
Affiliation:
[email protected], Syracuse University, physics, syracuse, New York, United States
Birol Ozturk
Affiliation:
[email protected], Syracuse University, Physics, 201 Physics Building, Syracuse, New York, 13244, United States
Eric A Schiff
Affiliation:
[email protected], Syracuse University, Physics, 201 Physics Building, Syracuse, New York, 13244-1130, United States, 315-443-3901
Baojie Yan
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, R&D, Troy, Michigan, United States
Jeff Yang
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, 1100 West Maple Road, Troy, Michigan, 48084, United States
Subhendu Guha
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar, 3800 Lapeer Road, Auburn Hills, Michigan, MI 48326, United States, 248 364 5707
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Abstract

Quantum efficiency measurements in (nc-Si:H) solar cells deposited onto textured substrates indicate that these cells are close to the “stochastic light-trapping limit“ proposed by Yablonovitch in the 1980s. An interesting alternative to texturing is “plasmonic“ light-trapping based on non-textured cells and using an overlayer of metallic nanoparticles to produce light-trapping. While this type of light-trapping has not yet been demonstrated for nc-Si:H solar cells, significant photocurrent enhancements have been reported on silicon-on-insulator devices with similar optical properties to nc-Si:H. Here we report our work on the measurerements of quantum efficiencies in nc-Si:H solar cells and normalized photoconductance spectra in SOI photdetectors with and without silver nanoparticle layers. As was done previously, the silver nanoparticles were created by thermal annealing of evaporated silver thin films. We observed enhancement in the normalized photoconductance spectra of SOI photodetectors at longer wavelengths with the silver nanoparticles. For nc-Si:H solar cells, we have not yet observed significant improvement of the quantum efficiency with the addition of annealed silver films.

Keywords

Agphotovoltaicnanostructure
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1245: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin-Film Silicon Science and Technology-2010 , 2010 , 1245-A03-02
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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