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Self-assembled monolayer of wavelength-scale core-shell particles for low-loss plasmonic and broadband light trapping in solar cells

Dabirian, A ; Sharif University of Technology

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b08560
  3. Publisher: American Chemical Society
  4. Abstract:
  5. 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 dye-sensitized solar cells and it improves the short-circuit current density of a cell with 7 μm-thick dye-sensitized layer by 38%. Optical measurements of the scattering properties of these particles confirm that the strong scattering and low-parasitic absorption losses constitute the main reason for this efficient light trapping
  6. Keywords:
  7. Dye-sensitized solar cell ; Light scattering ; Light trapping ; Plasmonic ; Thin film solar cell ; Light scattering ; Monolayers ; Optical data processing ; Plasmons ; Refractive index ; Self assembled monolayers ; Shells (structures) ; Silver ; Solar cells ; Thin films ; Core shell particles ; Light-trapping ; plasmonic ; Plasmonic resonances ; Scattering efficiency ; Scattering particles ; Thin film photovoltaics ; Thin film solar cells ; Dye-sensitized solar cells
  8. Source: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces ; Volume 8, Issue 1 , 2016 , Pages 247-255 ; 19448244 (ISSN)
  9. URL: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.5b08560