Plasmonic Enhancement of Solar Cells Efficiency: Material Dependence in Semiconductor Metallic Surface Nano-Modification

Abstract

Recent experimental data shown a promising direction in employing nano-plasmonics for increasing efficiencies of the solar cells. The effect is due to metallic nanoparticles' plasmons mediating energy transfer from the incoming e-m wave to the semiconductor in a regime violating limits in energy transitions imposed by the momentum conservation, due to translational invariance departure in surface nano-modified system. The chapter presents analysis of material dependence of near-field coupling to band electrons of surface plazmons in metallic nanoparticles deposited on the top of semiconductor sub-strate in nano-modified solar cells. Various materials for metal and substrate are comparatively studied upon the quantum Fermi Golden Rule approach in theoretical quantitative modeling of the plasmon-electron coupling that enhances ordinary PV effect. The material dependence of the plasmon-mediated efficiency growth in two types of solar cells, multi-crystalline Si and CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-diselenide), modified by various surface-deposited metallic nanoparticles is additionally illustrated by the experimental data.