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Bridging electromagnetic and carrier transport calculations for three-dimensional modelling of plasmonic solar cells

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Abstract

We report three-dimensional modelling of plasmonic solar cells in which electromagnetic simulation is directly linked to carrier transport calculations. To date, descriptions of plasmonic solar cells have only involved electromagnetic modelling without realistic assumptions about carrier transport, and we found that this leads to considerable discrepancies in behaviour particularly for devices based on materials with low carrier mobility. Enhanced light absorption and improved electronic response arising from plasmonic nanoparticle arrays on the solar cell surface are observed, in good agreement with previous experiments. The complete three-dimensional modelling provides a means to design plasmonic solar cells accurately with a thorough understanding of the plasmonic interaction with a photovoltaic device.

©2011 Optical Society of America

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Figures (4)

Fig. 1
Fig. 1 (a) and (b): schematic diagrams of the considered GaAs- and α-Si:H SCs; (c) and (d): current densities from solar incidence and those generated from the SCs; (e) and (f): EQE and IQE response of the SCs. (a), (c) and (e) [(b), (d) and (f)] are for GaAs (α-Si:H) SCs. The results obtained under ICT assumption are plotted with dashed curves. The observed peaks between 550 nm and 800 nm for α-Si:H SCs are due to Fabry-Perot interference in the cavity.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2 Schematic diagram (a) [(b)], EQE response (c) [(d)] and I-V curves (e) [(f)] of GaAs [α-Si:H] SCs before (dashed) and after (solid) the proposed plasmonic design with 160nm-diameter silver particles under period of 400 nm. Solid and dot curves are from complete calculation and optical estimation under ICT assumption, respectively. Power densities are also plotted in (e) and (f) so that the detailed information about Jsc , Voc , Pmax , FF, and η can be obtained. The performance enhancement is observed from these figures and the extracted performance parameters are listed in Table 2.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Power flow distributions in the plasmonic α-Si:H SCs with 160nm-diameter silver nanoparticles decorated above. In (a1) and (a2), λ = 350 nm (in photocurrent loss region) and in (b1), (b2), and (b3) λ = 500 nm (in photocurrent gain region). In (b3), field polarizations are also given.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Distributions of carrier generation rate [(a1) & (a2)], electron concentration [(b1) & (b2)], and hole concentration [(c1) & (c2)] inside the active layers of α-Si:H PSCs working at λ = 500 nm (in photocurrent gain region). Active layer configuration has been shown in Figs. 1(b) and 3(a1).

Tables (2)

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Table 1 Key Parameters Used in the Simulation [23,2529].

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Table 2 Performance Comparison under Various System Configurations

Equations (5)

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[ D n n + n μ n ( Φ + χ q + k B T q ln N c ) ] = g ( x , y , z , λ ) U ,
[ D p p p μ p ( Φ + χ q + E g q k B T q ln N v ) ] = g ( x , y , z , λ ) U ,
2 Φ = q ε ( n p C ) ,
j s c ( λ ) = 1 Λ 2 Λ / 2 Λ / 2 Λ / 2 Λ / 2 | j n ( x , y , L , λ ) + j p ( x , y , L , λ ) | d x d y ,
J ( V ) = J s c J d ( V ) V + J ( V ) R s R s h ,
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