Effect of Various Shapes of Silver Nanoparticles on the Performance of Plasmonic Solar Cells Active Layer

Abstract

In this work, the enhancement of optical absorption in organic thin film active layer was investigated theoretically. The optical absorption results reveal that the introduction of periodic silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) into the thin film active layer influences the absorption spectra. In this study, copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) as one of the organic solar cell materials has been used. Finite Different Time Domain technique has been used to demonstrate the role of the three different shapes of the silver nanoparticles (SNPs). It has been found that the NPs can result in broadband optical absorption enhancement in the wavelength range (350-550) nm due to the surface plasmonic resonance (SPR) phenomena. Moreover, the investigation has been performed the effect of the few shapes of (Cylinder with radius (R) 20 nm and height (H) 60 nm, radius (R) 30 nm for Sphere NPs, and Ellipse NPs with radius R1, R2 of 20 and 30 nm respectively) on the absorption in the organic thin films.

Keywords

• CuPc; plasmonic solar cell; Finite Different Time Domain; optical absorption enhancement; Silver Nano shapes.