Issue 9, 2014

Colloidal plasmonic back reflectors for light trapping in solar cells

Abstract

A novel type of plasmonic light trapping structure is presented in this paper, composed of metal nanoparticles synthesized in colloidal solution and self-assembled in uniform long-range arrays using a wet-coating method. The high monodispersion in size and spherical shape of the gold colloids used in this work allows a precise match between their measured optical properties and electromagnetic simulations performed with Mie theory, and enables the full exploitation of their collective resonant plasmonic behavior for light-scattering applications. The colloidal arrays are integrated in plasmonic back reflector (PBR) structures aimed for light trapping in thin film solar cells. The PBRs exhibit high diffuse reflectance (up to 75%) in the red and near-infrared spectrum, which can pronouncedly enhance the near-bandgap photocurrent generated by the cells. Furthermore, the colloidal PBRs are fabricated by low-temperature (<120 °C) processes that allow their implementation, as a final step of the cell construction, in typical commercial thin film devices generally fabricated in a superstrate configuration.

Graphical abstract: Colloidal plasmonic back reflectors for light trapping in solar cells

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Dec 2013
Accepted
10 Feb 2014
First published
14 Feb 2014
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2014,6, 4796-4805

Author version available

Colloidal plasmonic back reflectors for light trapping in solar cells

M. J. Mendes, S. Morawiec, F. Simone, F. Priolo and I. Crupi, Nanoscale, 2014, 6, 4796 DOI: 10.1039/C3NR06768H

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