Engineering and Technology Journal (Jan 2017)
Enhancement of Silicon Solar Cell’s Performance using Plasmonic Ag Nps
Abstract
In this paper, Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were prepared by laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) technique for different laser energy in water. Then the Ag NPs were deposited on the surface of Si solar cells to enhance their plasmonic absorption. The UV-VIS, FTIR spectrometer, and the Atomic force microscope were used to study the optical properties, composition, and the surface morphology of the NPs, respectively. The atomic absorption spectroscopy was also used to find the amount of ablated material. It is found that after the thermal deposition of the water drops containing Ag NPs on the surface of Silicon solar cells, the short circuit current and the overall conversion efficiency (η) have been improved. The short circuit current density (Jsc) has been increased by 14% after the drop overcasting of Ag NPs (about 92 nm in size) on the surface of silicon solar cells. The relative increase in Jsc may be attributed to the enhance plasmonic absorption for the incident light due to the forward scattering of Ag NPs.
Keywords