Conical and Cylindrical Metallic Nanoparticles Design for Plasmonic Photovoltaics Enhancement

Abstract

Plasmonic Photovoltaics are considered as a promising candidate for enhancing the optical absorption by embedding metallic nanoparticles that confine the incident light in the cell. This results in thin-film PVs with improved efficiency. In this paper, the effects of embedding both conical and cylindrical metal nanoparticles in plasmonic PVs are investigated. The extinction cross sections for these designs are calculated. The improvement of the optical absorption of the solar cell due to these nanoparticles is proved and compared. Finally, the effects of the design parameters of these nanoparticles are studied. All these simulations are done for PV hosting material of amorphous silicon (a-Si).