Investigating the Potential of Nanoplasmonics for Efficiency Enhancement of Wafer Based Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Nanoplasmonics has gained significant research interest for photovoltaic applications due to their ability to construct optically thick but physically thin photovoltaic absorbers for high efficiency solar cells including thin (10-50 mu m), ultrathin (a parts per thousand currency sign10 mu m) crystalline silicon solar cells, and amorphous silicon solar cells. In this paper, we investigate the potential of metal and dielectric nanoparticles on the efficiency enhancement of wafer based crystalline silicon solar cells having a physical thickness of 180 mu m. We explore on whether the use of nanoplasmonics can boost the efficiency even further for state-of-the-art crystalline silicon solar cells. The effect of nanoplasmonics on the important performance metrics like reflectance, light trapping, and series resistance have been thoroughly studied for probable efficiency enhancement of wafer based cells. It is seen that the benefits offered by nanoplasmonics for efficiency enhancement of thin solar cells are limited for physically thick absorbers. A simple analytical model has been proposed and experiments carried out to validate the same.