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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
E. Yablonovitch, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72, 899 (1982).
H. R. Stuart and D. G. Hall, Appl. Phys. Lett. 69, 2327 (1996).
S. Pillai, K. R. Catchpole, T. Trupke and M. A. Green, J. Appl. Phys. 101, 093105 (2007).
F. J. Beck, S. Mokkapati, A. Polman, and K. R. Catchpole, Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 033113 (2010).
D. M. Schaadt, B. Feng, and E. T. Yu, Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 063106 (2005).
J. Yang, B. Yan, G. Yue, S. Guha, D. Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 1153, A13-02, (2009).
In previous studies, the surface was coated with a 30 nm lithium fluoride (LiF) spacer layer before the silver deposition [2,3]. We tested the effect of LiF layer and found that this layer had little effect; we did not use the LiF spacer layer for the measurements presented here.
B. Ozturk, H. Zhao, E. A. Schiff, B. Yan, J. Yang, S. Guha, unpublished.
B. T. Draine, P. J. Flatau, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11, 1491 (1994)
P. B. Johnson and R. W. Christy, Phys. Rev. B 6, 4370 (1972)
H. Mertens, J. Verhoeven, A. Polman, Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 85,No. 8, 23 (2004)
B. Knoll, F. Keilmann, Nature 399, 134 (1999).
I. P. Protsenko and E. P. O’Reilly, Phys. Rev. A 74, 033815 (2006).
Y. S. Jung, Thin Solid Films 467, 36 (2004)
E. D. Palik, Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids Vol.2 (AP,1991) and Vol.3 (AP, 1998).
C. F. Bohren and D. R. Huffman, Absorption and scattering of light by small particles (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1983)
B. J. Soller, H. R. Stuart, and D. G. Hall, Opt. Lett. 26, 1421 (2001).
J. Mertz, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 17, 1906 (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhao, H., Ozturk, B., Schiff, E.A. et al. Plasmonic Light-trapping and Quantum Efficiency Measurements On Nanocrystalline Silicon Solar Cells and Silicon-On-Insulator Devices. MRS Online Proceedings Library 1245, 302 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-1245-A03-02
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-1245-A03-02