Sharif Digital Repository

Semiconductor photoelectrodes for water oxidation that absorb visible light usually have poor electronic transport properties and small optical absorption coefficients near their absorption edge. Therefore, innovative designs that lead to significant optical absorption in relatively thin layers of these compounds are highly desirable. Here, using full-field electromagnetic optical simulations, we demonstrate that a monolayer of resonant-size BiVO4 spheres can provide enhancement up to a factor of two in solar light absorption relative to dense planar layers. In this monolayer, BiVO4 spheres do not need to be interconnected; therefore, such monolayers are flexible and their fabrication... 

Scattering particles constitute a key light trapping solution for thin film photovoltaics where either the particles are embedded in the light absorbing layer or a thick layer of them is used as a reflector. Here we introduce a monolayer of wavelength-scale core-shell silica@Ag particles as a novel light trapping strategy for thin film photovoltaics. These particles show hybrid photonic-plasmonic resonance modes that scatter light strongly and with small parasitic absorption losses in Ag (<1.5%). In addition, their scattering efficiency does not vary significantly with the refractive index of the surrounding medium. A monolayer of these particles is applied as the top-scattering layers in a... 

Plasmonic Sierpinski nanocarpet as back structure for a thin film Si solar cell is investigated. We demonstrate that ultra-broadband light trapping can be obtained by placing square metallic nanoridges with Sierpinski pattern on the back contact of the thin film solar cell. The multiple-scale plasmonic fractal structure allows excitation of localized surface plasmons and surface plasmon polaritons in multiple wavelengths leading to obvious absorption enhancements in a wide frequency range. Full wave simulations show that 109 % increase of the short-circuit current density for a 200 nm thick solar cell, is achievable by the proposed fractal back structure. The amount of light absorbed in the... 

We propose and theoretically evaluate a plasmonic light trapping solution for thin film photovoltaic devices that comprises a monolayer or a submonolayer of wavelength-scale silver particles. We systematically study the effect of silver particle size using full-wave electromagnetic simulations. We find that light trapping is significantly enhanced when wavelength-scale silver particles rather than the ones with subwavelength dimensions are used. We demonstrate that a densely packed monolayer of spherical 700 nm silver particles enhances integrated optical absorption under standard air mass 1.5 global (AM1.5G) in a 7 μm-thick N719-sensitized solar cell by 40% whereas enhancement is smaller... 

We propose a nano-plasmonic thin-film solar cell (TFSC) as a receiver for the visible light communication (VLC). The presented design is a novel and optimized structure that can be used instead of photodetectors and power supplies in the VLC. The plasmonic TFSC that described in this work is capable of increasing the light absorption in comparison with the conventional thick Si solar cell without plasmonic nanostructures. However, plasmonic nanoparticles can improve the absorption of Si solar cell in a visible range of solar spectra. In this paper, different situations for inserting nanoparticles in an active layer are considered and the absorption is calculated as a function of particle... 

Dielectric scattering particles have widely been used as embedded scattering elements in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) to improve the optical absorption of the device. Here we systematically study rodlike and spherical core-shell silica@Ag particles as more effective alternatives to the dielectric scattering particles. The wavelength-scale silica@Ag particles with sufficiently thin Ag shell support hybrid plasmonic-photonic resonance modes that have low parasitic absorption losses and a broadband optical response. Both of these features lead to their successful deployment in light trapping in high-efficiency DSCs. Optimized rodlike silica@Ag@silica particles improve the power conversion...