Plasmon-enhanced light absorption in thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells

Resonant excitation of plasmons in metallic nanoparticles can cause a very strong enhancement in absorption and/or scattering by the nanoparticles. By tuning the positions of these resonances through varying the size and surface coverage of the nanoparticles, one can get the enhancement of solar cell performance due to improved optical absorption in the photoactive layer. Despite several experimental studies on metallic nanoparticle enhancement of solar cell performance, no systematic research has been carried out to find the optimum nanoparticle parameters, which enables the efficient optical absorption and light trapping in thin-film solar cells. This work highlights a systematic study performed on the optimization of the parameters of the silver nanoparticle array based on predictive numerical modeling to achieve better optical enhancement and light trapping inside a thin-film amorphous silicon solar cell.