Modeling plasmonic scattering combined with thin-film optics

Plasmonic scattering from metal nanostructures presents a promising concept for improving the conversion efficiency of solar cells. The determination of optimal nanostructures and their position within the solar cell is crucial to boost the efficiency. Therefore we established a one-dimensional optical model combining plasmonic scattering and thin-film optics to simulate optical properties of thin-film solar cells including metal nanoparticles. Scattering models based on dipole oscillations and Mie theory are presented and their integration in thin-film semi-coherent optical descriptions is explained. A plasmonic layer is introduced in the thin-film structure to simulate scattering properties as well as parasitic absorption in the metal nanoparticles. A proof of modeling concept is given for the case of metal-island grown silver nanoparticles on glass and ZnO:Al/glass substrates. Using simulations a promising application of the nanoparticle integration is shown for the case of CuGaSe2 solar cells.