Surface Plasmon Resonances Can Improve Solar Cell Efficiencies

As silicon is an expensive material, there is significant research into thin-film silicon solar cells that use less silicon to reduce the cost of solar panels. However, with thinner silicon regions, less incident light is absorbed. To combat the associated decrease in solar cell efficiency, there is intense interest in using metallic nanoparticles on the surface of thin film silicon solar cells in order to improve device efficiencies. The large scattering cross sections presented by metallic nanoparticles in the visible part of the solar spectrum is able to dramatically increase the absorption of solar energy in different thin-film solar cells.

Applicable Products to Surface Plasmon Solar Cell Design

Lumerical's optoelectronic device TCAD simulator DEVICE can:

• Build a 3D model of your solar cell design including the impurity concentration profiles and contact geometry. Import geometric data from FDTD solutions or GDSII mask files
• Accurately model semiconductor materials accounting for surface and bulk recombination through detailed models. Define your own semiconductor material models, or use predefined models for common semiconductors like silicon.
• Calculate the collection efficiency of electron / hole carriers for arbitrary optical generation spatial profiles, imported from FDTD Solutions or other optical simulation tools
• Characterize your device and calculate performance metrics like energy conversion efficiency, quantum efficiency, fill factor and maximum power point
• Optimize your solar cell using the built-in parameter sweep and optimization framework
• Obtain accurate results quickly by taking advantage of Lumerical's concurrent computing technology to dispatch simulation jobs to multiple computers on your network

Plasmonic Solar Cell Publications Showcasing Lumerical Products

	F. J. Beck, A. Polman, and K. R. Catchpole, "Tunable light trapping for solar cells using localized surface plasmons," Journal of Applied Physics 105, 114310 (2009)
	K. R. Catchpole and A. Polman, "Design principles for particle plasmon enhanced solar cells", APL 93, 191113 (2008)
	F. J. Beck, S. Mokkapati, A. Polman and K. R. Catchpole- “Asymmetry in photocurrent enhancement by plasmonic nanoparticle arrays located on the front or on the rear of solar cells”, 2010 - ieeexplore.ieee.org

See the complete list of publications featuring Lumerical ⇒