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Perfect selective metamaterial absorber with thin-film of GaAs layer in the visible region for solar cell applications

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Abstract

In this paper, we have presented a new design of a metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA) consisting of three layers of metal-dielectric-metal in which the top layer is considered of special kind square patches at different places in a unit cell. This MPA exhibits wideband, wide-angle, and polarization-independent absorption performance in the visible region. The proposed MPA structure is composed of a resonator of metal and spacer of a dielectric layer. The interactions between the resonator and the coupling of metal-dielectric create the plasmonics effects which are responsible for the perfect absorption. Under a specific condition, this simulated absorber structure exhibits an extremely high broadband absorption between 591.54 and 704.40 nm wavelength range with near-unity absorption, and a single peak observed at 385.33 nm with the absorption of 94.16%. We extracted the impedance of the absorber and matched it with free space, and also demonstrated the effective permittivity and permeability. Moreover, the parametric study of the resonators, dielectric layer, and multi-band topology has also been investigated. The polarization-insensitive-based metamaterial may be utilized to improve the efficiency of different devices in the visible range. Furthermore, we have calculated the absorption of the proposed MPA under solar radiation (AM1.5) for different structural parameters. The proposed absorber greatly enhances the conversion efficiency which is highly useful for solar cells. We also determined the short circuit current density of this absorber for different thicknesses of the GaAs layer. The meta-surface of Al metal provides a good performance in comparison to other costly metals and the proposed structure may be used for different devices.

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Acknowledgements

One of the authors (Raj Kumar) is thankful to The University Grants Commission (UGC), India for providing the senior research fellowship. Bipin K. Singh is thankful to The University Grants Commission (UGC), India, for providing financial support in the form of Dr. D. S. Kothari Postdoctoral Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi, U.P., 221005, India

    Raj Kumar & Praveen C. Pandey

  2. Department of Physics, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, 400098, India

    Bipin K. Singh

  3. Department of Applied Science and Humanities, ABES Engineering College, Ghaziabad, 201009, India

    Rajesh K. Tiwari

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  1. Raj Kumar
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Correspondence to Praveen C. Pandey.

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Kumar, R., Singh, B.K., Tiwari, R.K. et al. Perfect selective metamaterial absorber with thin-film of GaAs layer in the visible region for solar cell applications. Opt Quant Electron 54, 416 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-022-03798-2

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