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Aluminum nanoparticles enhanced light absorption in silicon solar cell by surface plasmon resonance

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Abstract

In this paper, the surface plasmon resonance-enhanced optical absorption in thin silicon solar cells through aluminum sphere nanoparticles (NPs) was investigated. The effect of particle size and the distance between particles on absorption enhancement is studied using a finite-difference time-domain technique. The results showed that an enhancement of 40 % in absorption could be achieved by integrating the aluminum particles on thin silicon solar cells with the proper combination of NP parameters compared to those without aluminum particles. The work is useful for the further theoretical study and design for the plasmonic thin-film solar cell.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Weida Hu from Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for helpful discussion and James Torley from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11347021 and 61106126).

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Correspondence to Debao Zhang.

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Zhang, D., Yang, X., Hong, X. et al. Aluminum nanoparticles enhanced light absorption in silicon solar cell by surface plasmon resonance. Opt Quant Electron 47, 1421–1427 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-014-0103-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-014-0103-0

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