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Optimization of Silver Nanotoroid Arrays for the Absorption Enhancement of Silicon Thin-Film Solar Cells

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Abstract

The enhancement of absorbed electromagnetic energy of thin-film silicon photovoltaics due to toroid-shaped plasmonic nanoparticles is computationally investigated. Using Ansys® HFSS, infinite arrays of silver nanotoroids of various sizes are tuned to maximize the photocurrent generation of the photovoltaic. The obtained results show that larger nanotoroid arrays can be tuned to provide enhanced photocurrent generation that is comparable to traditional sphere-shaped nanoparticles. The highly tunable nature of the resonant frequencies of plasmonic nanotoroid geometries is investigated here, which hold potential advantage over nanoparticles in their ability to enhance electromagnetic energy absorption in the longer wavelength regime of the solar spectrum. The obtained results show that larger nanotoroid arrays can be tuned to provide enhanced photocurrent generation comparable to traditional nanoparticles.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported mainly through the NSF/ECCS award no. 1006927 and in part through NSF GK12 award no. 0538645, NSF Cyber infrastructure awards EP-0918970 and MRI no. 072265.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Nathan Burford & Magda El-Shenawee

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  1. Nathan Burford
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  2. Magda El-Shenawee
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Correspondence to Nathan Burford.

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Burford, N., El-Shenawee, M. Optimization of Silver Nanotoroid Arrays for the Absorption Enhancement of Silicon Thin-Film Solar Cells. Plasmonics 10, 225–232 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-014-9799-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-014-9799-8

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