Resonant and nonresonant plasmonic nanoparticle enhancement for thin-film silicon solar cells

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of resonant and nonresonant plasmonic nanostructures, such as arrays of silver and aluminum nanoparticles in the forward scattering configuration, on the optical absorption in a thin-film amorphous silicon solar cell. It is demonstrated that nonresonant coupling of the incident sunlight with aluminum nanoparticles results in higher optical absorption in the photoactive region than resonant coupling with silver nanoparticle arrays. In addition, aluminum nanoparticles are shown to maintain a net positive enhancement of the optical absorption in amorphous silicon, as compared to a negative effect by silver nanoparticles, when the nanoparticles are oxidized.