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Opto-Electrical Performance Improvement of Mono c-Si Solar Cells Using Dielectric–Metal–Dielectric (D-M-D) Sandwiched Structure-Based Plasmonic Anti-Reflector

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Abstract

Mono c-Si solar cells based on plasmonic anti-reflector, an ultra-thin silver (Ag) film sandwiched between silicon nitride (SiNx) layers on non-textured c-Si surface, have been explored. Prior to solar cell fabrication, the plasmonic anti-reflector structure was optimized separately by varying different thicknesses of top and bottom SiNx layers and the sandwiched ultra-thin Ag film. For broad wavelength range (300–1200 nm), minimum weighted reflectance was observed in the range of 8–9 %, for the top and bottom SiNx layers having 70–80-nm thickness. The refractive index of top and bottom SiNx layers was in the range of 1.77–1.80 and 1.92–1.96, respectively. A 180-μm non-textured mono c-Si solar cell is fabricated with plasmonic anti-reflector, having top and bottom SiNx layer thickness of 80-nm and 8–9-nm sandwiched ultra-thin Ag layer, resulted in 17 % solar cell efficiency. The measured efficiency was 1.8 % higher compared to 180-μm mono c-Si solar cell with standard 80 nm SiNx anti-reflector. The short circuit current density (J sc) extracted from external quantum efficiency (EQE) has shown 0.5 mA/cm2 enhancement for the dielectric–metal–dielectric (D-M-D) sandwiched structure (plasmonic anti-reflector)-based solar cell compared to standard SiNx anti-reflection coating (ARC) structure-based solar cell. EQE enhancement was seen for all wavelengths above 700 nm with maximum 25–26 % enhancement at around 1125 nm. Also, in UV wavelength region (300–400 nm), EQE enhancement was seen with maximum 25 % enhancement at around 370 nm. Possible phenomenon for improved anti-reflection and EQE in D-M-D-based plasmonic anti-reflector has been discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was done at the “National Centre for Photovoltaic Research and Education (NCPRE), IIT-Bombay” which is financially supported by the “Ministry of New Renewable Energy (MNRE), Govt. of India.” The authors would like to acknowledge Som Mondal, Mehul Raval, Dr. S. Saravanan, and other colleagues at NCPRE for their help in fabrication and discussions. Also, the authors would like to acknowledge IIT Bombay Nanofabrication Facility (IITBNF) and the faculty members (Prof. J. Vasi, Prof. Anil, Prof. B.M. Arora, and Prof. K.L. Narasimhan) as well as the staff members for their great team work and support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Centre for Photovoltaic Research and Education (NCPRE), IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Hemant Kumar Singh, Balraj Arunachalam, Sandeep Kumbhar, Pratibha Sharma & C. S. Solanki

  2. Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Hemant Kumar Singh, Balraj Arunachalam, Sandeep Kumbhar, Pratibha Sharma & C. S. Solanki

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  1. Hemant Kumar Singh
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  2. Balraj Arunachalam
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Correspondence to Hemant Kumar Singh.

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Singh, H.K., Arunachalam, B., Kumbhar, S. et al. Opto-Electrical Performance Improvement of Mono c-Si Solar Cells Using Dielectric–Metal–Dielectric (D-M-D) Sandwiched Structure-Based Plasmonic Anti-Reflector. Plasmonics 11, 323–336 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-015-0049-5

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