Increased Light Absorption in CIGS Solar Cells with Plasmonic Ag Nanostructures to Increase Efficiency

Subject Areas : Renewable energy

Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Hsheminassab ¹ , Mohsen Imanieh ² , Abbas Kamali ³ , Seyyed ali Emamghorashi ⁴ , Saeed Hassanhasseini ⁵

1 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Fasa Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fasa, Iran
2 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Fasa Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fasa, Iran
3 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Fasa Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fasa, Iran
4 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Fasa Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fasa, Iran
5 - Department of Electrical Engineering- Fasa Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fasa, Iran

Received: 2020-09-25 Accepted : 2020-11-30 Published : 2021-05-22

Keywords: FDTD, plasmonics, CIGS solar cells, Ag nano-particles, nano-particle shapes,

Abstract :

Recently, environmental problems on a global scale has been increased seriously. To overcome these problems, Solar cells is important as an energy source and free from contamination. Due to the increasing use of renewables, the use of solar cells for obtaining energy is growing. The cells convert directly sunlight into electricity by the photovoltaic. Photovoltaic energy research and development is generally done in two areas: cost reduction and increasing efficiency. The efficiency of thin film solar cells canbe increased considerably by coupling the solarcells with plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs). this study investigates, through meticuloussimulations, the effects of plasmonic nanoparticle shapes and size on theimprovement of the energy conversion efficiency of CIGS solar cells. Two different shapes including spheres and cylinders were analyzed in this study.It was revealed that the cylindrical Agnanoparticles, of diameter 50 nm, height 125 nm place on an array with period 215 nm exhibited the most substantialenhancement in the optical absorption and electrical currentgeneration. The conclusion attained in this paper has been made throughoptical and electricalanalysis as well as near field imaging studies.

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