Thin film PV cell with Ag nanoparticle layers in TCO and Si nanosponge absorber


Thin film PV cell with Ag nanoparticle layers in TCO and Si nanosponge absorber

Liedke, B.; Heinig, K.-H.; Gulseren, O.; Akguc, G. B.; Vinnichenko, M.

The plasmonic action of Ag nanoparticles has the potential to increase the efficiency of thin film PV cells substantially. Here, two different actions will be considered: (i) Ag nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in the Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) at the rear side of thin-film PV cells can induce plasmonic scattering of red light, which increases the light way and therefore the absorption in the absorber layer. (ii) Ag NPs embedded in the absorber layer increases carrier generation due to plasmonic light field enhancement.
For the plasmonic action (i), a thin Ag layer is sandwiched between ZnO:Al by sputter deposition. Subsequently, by a thermal treatment this Ag layer is decomposed via spinodal dewetting into an Ag NP layer. Structural, electrical and optical properties are investigated theoretically, by atomistic simulation and FDTD and boundary element calculations, and experimentally.
For the plasmonic action (ii) it has to be avoided that Ag NPs in the absorber layer become charge carrier killer. Usually this is impossible, but in our novel absorber consisting of a Si nanowire network (nanosponge) in SiO2, the Ag NPs can be located in SiO2 without contact to the electrically percolated Si network. Based on large-scale atomistic simulations it is predicted that such a nanocomposite can be synthesized by PVD deposition of SiO with a sandwiched thin Ag layer. It will be shown that subsequent thermal treatment results in nanosponge with Ag/Si core-shell NPs in SiO2.

Keywords: TCO; AZO; plasmonics; Ag nanoparticles; ZnO; kinetic Monte-Carlo; FDTD; boundary element method; light harvesting

Related publications

  • Lecture (Conference)
    E-MRS 2012 Spring Meeting, 14.-18.05.2012, Strasbourg, France

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-17134
Publ.-Id: 17134