Download or read book Light Trapping in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells Via Plasmonic Metal Nanoparticles written by Ryan Veenkamp and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Anti reflection and Light Trapping in c Si Solar Cells written by Chetan Singh Solanki and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers essential insights into c-Si based solar cells and fundamentals of reflection, refraction, and light trapping. The basic physics and technology for light trapping in c-Si based solar cells are covered, from traditional to advanced light trapping structures. Further, the book discusses the latest developments in plasmonics for c-Si solar cell applications, along with their future scope and the requirements for further research. The book offers a valuable guide for graduate students, researchers and professionals interested in the latest trends in solar cell technologies.
Download or read book Light Trapping with Plasmonic Back Contacts in Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells written by Ulrich Wilhelm Paetzold and published by Forschungszentrum Jülich. This book was released on 2013 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nanostructured Solar Cells written by Narottam Das and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2017-02-22 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nanostructured solar cells are very important in renewable energy sector as well as in environmental aspects, because it is environment friendly. The nano-grating structures (such as triangular or conical shaped) have a gradual change in refractive index which acts as a multilayer antireflective coating that is leading to reduced light reflection losses over broadband ranges of wavelength and angle of incidence. There are different types of losses in solar cells that always reduce the conversion efficiency, but the light reflection loss is the most important factor that decreases the conversion efficiency of solar cells significantly. The antireflective coating is an optical coating which is applied to the surface of lenses or any optical devices to reduce the light reflection losses. This coating assists for the light trapping capturing capacity or improves the efficiency of optical devices, such as lenses or solar cells. Hence, the multilayer antireflective coatings can reduce the light reflection losses and increases the conversion efficiency of nanostructured solar cells.
Download or read book Diffractive Optics for Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells written by Christian Stefano Schuster and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis introduces a figure of merit for light trapping with photonic nanostructures and shows how different light trapping methods compare, irrespective of material, absorber thickness or type of nanostructure. It provides an overview of the essential aspects of light trapping, offering a solid basis for future designs. Light trapping with photonic nanostructures is a powerful method of increasing the absorption in thin film solar cells. Many light trapping methods have been studied, but to date there has been no comprehensive figure of merit to compare these different methods quantitatively. This comparison allows us to establish important design rules for highly performing structures; one such rule is the structuring of the absorber layer from both sides, for which the authors introduce a novel and simple layer-transfer technique. A closely related issue is the question of plasmonic vs. dielectric nanostructures; the authors present an experimental demonstration, aided by a detailed theoretical assessment, highlighting the importance of considering the multipass nature of light trapping in a thin film, which is an essential effect that has been neglected in previous work and which allows us to quantify the parasitic losses.
Download or read book Intelligent Computing Applications for Sustainable Real World Systems written by Manjaree Pandit and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book delves into various solution paradigms such as artificial neural network, support vector machine, wavelet transforms, evolutionary computing, swarm intelligence. During the last decade, novel solution technologies based on human and species intelligence have gained immense popularity due to their flexible and unconventional approach. New analytical tools are also being developed to handle big data processing and smart decision making. The idea behind compiling this work is to familiarize researchers, academicians, industry persons and students with various applications of intelligent techniques for producing sustainable, cost-effective and robust solutions of frequently encountered complex, real-world problems in engineering and science disciplines. The practical problems in smart grids, communication, waste management, elimination of harmful elements from nature, etc., are identified, and smart and optimal solutions are proposed.
Download or read book Solar Cells written by Martin A. Green and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fundamentals of Solar Cell Design written by Inamuddin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solar cells are semiconductor devices that convert light photons into electricity in photovoltaic energy conversion and can help to overcome the global energy crisis. Solar cells have many applications including remote area power systems, earth-orbiting satellites, wristwatches, water pumping, photodetectors and remote radiotelephones. Solar cell technology is economically feasible for commercial-scale power generation. While commercial solar cells exhibit good performance and stability, still researchers are looking at many ways to improve the performance and cost of solar cells via modulating the fundamental properties of semiconductors. Solar cell technology is the key to a clean energy future. Solar cells directly harvest energy from the sun’s light radiation into electricity are in an ever-growing demand for future global energy production. Solar cell-based energy harvesting has attracted worldwide attention for their notable features, such as cheap renewable technology, scalable, lightweight, flexibility, versatility, no greenhouse gas emission, environment, and economy friendly and operational costs are quite low compared to other forms of power generation. Thus, solar cell technology is at the forefront of renewable energy technologies which are used in telecommunications, power plants, small devices to satellites. Aiming at large-scale implementation can be manipulated by various types used in solar cell design and exploration of new materials towards improving performance and reducing cost. Therefore, in-depth knowledge about solar cell design is fundamental for those who wish to apply this knowledge and understanding in industries and academics. This book provides a comprehensive overview on solar cells and explores the history to evolution and present scenarios of solar cell design, classification, properties, various semiconductor materials, thin films, wafer-scale, transparent solar cells, and so on. It also includes solar cells’ characterization analytical tools, theoretical modeling, practices to enhance conversion efficiencies, applications and patents.
Download or read book Photon Management in Solar Cells written by Ralf B. Wehrspohn and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by renowned experts in the field of photon management in solar cells, this one-stop reference gives an introduction to the physics of light management in solar cells, and discusses the different concepts and methods of applying photon management. The authors cover the physics, principles, concepts, technologies, and methods used, explaining how to increase the efficiency of solar cells by splitting or modifying the solar spectrum before they absorb the sunlight. In so doing, they present novel concepts and materials allowing for the cheaper, more flexible manufacture of solar cells and systems. For educational purposes, the authors have split the reasons for photon management into spatial and spectral light management. Bridging the gap between the photonics and the photovoltaics communities, this is an invaluable reference for materials scientists, physicists in industry, experimental physicists, lecturers in physics, Ph.D. students in physics and material sciences, engineers in power technology, applied and surface physicists.
Download or read book Application of Localized Surface Plasmons for the Enhancement of This film Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells written by Chanse D.. Hungerford and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Photovoltaics (PV) is a rapidly growing electricity source and new PV technologies are continually being developed. Increasing the efficiency of PV will continue to drive down the costs of solar installations. One area of research that is necessary for increasing PV performance is light management. This is especially true for thin-film devices that are unable to maximize absorption of the solar spectrum in a single pass. Methods for light trapping include texturing, high index nanostructures, nanophotonic structures, and plasmonics. This research focus on the use of plasmonic structures, in this case metallic nanoparticles, to increase the power conversion efficiency of solar cells. Three different designs are investigated. First was an a-Si:H solar cell, approximately 300nm thick, with a rear reflector consisting of metallic nanoparticles and a mirror. This structure is referred to as a plasmonic back reflector. Simulations indicate that a maximum absorption increase of 7.2% in the 500nm to 800nm wavelength range is possible versus a flat reference. Experiments did not show enhancement, likely due to absorption in the transparent conducting oxide and the parasitic absorption in the small metallic nanoparticles. The second design was an a-Si:H solar cell with embedded metal nanoparticles. Experimental devices were successfully fabricated by breaking the i-layer deposition into two steps and introducing colloidal nanoparticles between the two depositions. These devices performed worse than the controls, but the results provide proof that fabrication of such a device is possible and may be improved in the future. Suggestions for improvements are discussed. The final device investigated was an ultra-thin, undoped solar cell. The device used an absorber layer
Download or read book Solar Cells and Light Management written by Francesco Enrichi and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solar Cells and Light Management: Materials, Strategies and Sustainability provides an extensive review on the latest advances in PV materials, along with light management strategies for better exploiting the solar spectrum. Following a brief review of the current status of solar cells, the book discusses different concepts, principles and technologies for solar devices, starting with standard silicon cells and then covering organic-hybrid, DSSC, perovskite, quantum dots and nanostructured oxide solar cells. Other sections focus on light manipulation and spectral modification, materials for spectral conversion, and environmental and sustainably considerations. An emergy analysis, which is an extension of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, is applied to the study of solar PV systems, thus allowing for effective integrated indicators. - Provides a comprehensive picture of light management strategies - Features the most recent advances in the field, including novel materials and advanced solar cell technologies - Presents a resource that is applicable to both new or experienced researchers in the field - Contains a section on environmental and sustainability issues
Download or read book Plasmonic Thin Film Solar Cells written by Qiuping Huang and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thin film solar cell technology represents an alternative way to effectively solve the world's increasing energy shortage problem. Light trapping is of critical importance. Surface plasmons (SPs), including both localized surface plasmons (LSPs) excited in the metallic nanoparticles and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) propagating at the metal/semiconductor interfaces, have been so far extensively investigated with great interests in designing thin film solar cells. In this chapter, plasmonic structures to improve the performance of thin film solar cell are reviewed according to their positions of the nanostructures, which can be divided into at least three ways: directly on top of thin film solar cell, embedded at the bottom or middle of the optical absorber layer, and hybrid of metallic nanostructures with nanowire of optical absorber layer.
Download or read book Plasmonic Organic Solar Cells written by Bo Wu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the incorporation of plasmonic nanostructures into organic solar cells, which offers an attractive light trapping and absorption approach to enhance power conversion efficiencies. The authors review the latest advances in the field and discuss the characterization of these hybrid devices using a combination of optical and electrical probes. Transient optical spectroscopies such as transient absorption and transient photoluminescence spectroscopy offer powerful tools for observing charge carrier dynamics in plasmonic organic solar cells. In conjunction with device electrical characterizations, they provide unambiguous proof of the effect of the plasmonic nanostructures on the solar cells’ performance. However, there have been a number of controversies over the effects of such integration – where both enhanced and decreased performance have been reported. Importantly, the new insights into the photophysics and charge dynamics of plasmonic organic solar cells that these spectroscopy methods yield could be used to resolve these controversies and provide clear guidelines for device design and fabrication.
Download or read book Thin Film Solar Cells written by Jef Poortmans and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2006-10-16 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thin-film solar cells are either emerging or about to emerge from the research laboratory to become commercially available devices finding practical various applications. Currently no textbook outlining the basic theoretical background, methods of fabrication and applications currently exist. Thus, this book aims to present for the first time an in-depth overview of this topic covering a broad range of thin-film solar cell technologies including both organic and inorganic materials, presented in a systematic fashion, by the scientific leaders in the respective domains. It covers a broad range of related topics, from physical principles to design, fabrication, characterization, and applications of novel photovoltaic devices.
Download or read book Plasmonics for Improved Thin film Photovoltaic Cells and Enhanced Light Extraction from Organic Light emitting Diodes written by Chi-Sheng Chang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Surface plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles has attracted much attention by creating unique interactions between light and nanoparticles. This special phenomenon can be utilized in optoelectronics applications such as photovoltaics and light emitting diodes, to improve their efficiency. This thesis focuses on the influence of gold and silver nanoparticles on the photoconductivity of amorphous silicon, the efficacy of organic solar cells, and light extraction from organic light-emitting diodes. Enhancement of photovoltaics by integrating cells with gold nanorods is of potential interest to reduce the usage of semiconductor material. Gold nanorods with the ability to control surface plasmon resonance were synthesized and their thermal stability was increased by silica-coating to enable them to withstand standard semiconductor processing. Silica-coated gold nanorods maintain rod-like shape to over 600 °C and they can increase the photoconductivity of thin film amorphous silicon by much more than a factor of 2 across the entire visible spectrum. The enhancement mechanism studies show that absorption enhancement due to strong near-field light concentration is the primary effect rather than pathlength increases due to light scattering. Bulk heterojunction polymeric solar cells have an extremely thin active layer with thickness of 100 ~ 200 nm and can take advantage of plasmonic effects on absorption to improve their efficiencies. Gold nanorods were introduced into model solar cells consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). No obvious improvements in short circuit currents were observed when particles were embedded in the poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) anode layer. When blending silica-coated gold nanorods into the active layer, no significant improvements were obtained but the silica shell prevented metal nanorods from quenching excitons and trapping charge carriers so that future improvements using this materials design may yet be possible. The external quantum efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) is limited to ~ 20 % because of the refractive index mismatch between multiple layers in the devices. Large silver nanoparticles were synthesized and exhibited strong light scattering through the visible spectrum. These were incorporated into a layer between the indium tin oxide (ITO) anode and the glass substrate to improve light extraction from OLEDs. SiO2, TiO2 and mixed sol-gel films were developed to planarize silver nanoparticles. In spite of our hypothesis that strong scattering by large silver particles could be used to improve light extraction from OLEDs, our best results were to observe ~ 15 % decreases in light output even when the refractive index of the planarization layer was well matched to that of the ITO anode"--Pages v-vi.
Download or read book Nanoplasmonics written by James W. M. Chon and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on control and manipulation of plasmons at nanometer dimensions, nanoplasmonics combines the strength of electronics and photonics, and is predicted to replace existing integrated circuits and photonic devices. It is one of the fastest growing fields of science, with applications in telecommunication, consumer electronics, data storage, medical diagnostics, and energy. Nanoplasmonics: Advanced Device Applications provides a scientific and technological background of a particular nanoplasmonic application and outlines the progress and challenges of the application. It reviews the latest developments in nanoplasmonic applications, such as optical storage, photovoltaics, photocatalysts, integrated chips, optical elements, and sensing. The areas of application were chosen for their practicality, and each chapter provides a balanced scientific review and technological progress of how these areas of application are shaping the future.
Download or read book Plasmonic and Photonic Designs for Light Trapping in Thin Film Solar Cells written by Liming Ji and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thin film solar cells are promising to realize cheap solar energy. Compared to conventional wafer cells, they can reduce the use of semiconductor material by 90%. The efficiency of thin film solar cells, however, is limited due to insufficient light absorption. Sufficient light absorption at the bandgap of semiconductor requires a light path more than 10x the thickness of the semiconductor. Advanced designs for light trapping are necessary for solar cells to absorb sufficient light within a limited volume of semiconductor. The goal is to convert the incident light into a trapped mode in the semiconductor layer. In this dissertation, a critical review of currently used methods for light trapping in solar cells is presented. The disadvantage of each design is pointed out including insufficient enhancement, undesired optical loss and undesired loss in carrier transport. The focus of the dissertation is light trapping by plasmonic and photonic structures in thin film Si solar cells. The performance of light trapping by plasmonic structures is dependent on the efficiency of photon radiation from plasmonic structures. The theory of antenna radiation is used to study the radiation by plasmonic structures. In order to achieve efficient photon radiation at a plasmonic resonance, a proper distribution of surface charges is necessary. The planar fishnet structure is proposed as a substitution for plasmonic particles. Large particles are required in order to resonate at the bandgap of semiconductor material. Hence, the resulting overall thickness of solar cells with large particles is large. Instead, the resonance of fishnet structure can be tuned without affecting the overall cell thickness. Numerical simulation shows that the enhancement of light absorption in the active layer is over 10x compared to the same cell without fishnet. Photons radiated from the resonating fishnet structure travel in multiple directions within the semiconductor layer. There is enhanced field localization due to interference. The short circuit current was enhanced by 13.29%. Photonic structures such as nanodomes and gratings are studied. Compared to existing designs, photonic structures studied in this dissertation exhibited further improvements in light absorption and carrier transport. The nanodome geometry was combined with conductive charge collectors in order to perform simultaneous enhancement in optics and carrier transport. Despite the increased volume of semiconductor material, the collection length for carriers is less than the diffusion length for minority carriers. The nanodome geometry can be used in the back end and the front end of solar cells. A blazed grating structure made of transparent conductive oxide serves as the back passivation layer while enhancing light absorption. The surface area of the absorber is increased by only 15%, indicating a limited increase in surface recombination. The resulting short circuit current is enhanced by over 20%. The designs presented in the dissertation have demonstrated enhancement in Si thin film solar cells. The enhancement is achieved without hurting carrier transport in solar cells. As a result, the enhancement in light absorption can efficiently convert to the enhancement in cell efficiency. The fabrication of the proposed designs in this dissertation involves expensive process such as electron beam lithography. Future work is focused on optical designs that are feasible for cheap fabrication process. The designs studied in this dissertation can serve as prototype designs for future work.
