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Front Cover: Embedded metal nanopatterns for near‐field scattering‐enhanced optical absorption (Phys. Status Solidi A 10/2012)
Author(s) -
Ye Fan,
Burns Michael J.,
Naughton Michael J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.201290025
Subject(s) - materials science , amorphous silicon , absorbance , optoelectronics , thin film , scattering , absorption (acoustics) , plasmonic solar cell , near and far field , amorphous solid , silicon , optics , solar cell , nanotechnology , crystalline silicon , polymer solar cell , composite material , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry
Optimizing light trapping in thin‐film solar cells has been intensively investigated in recent years. Ye, Burns and Naughton ( pp. 1829–1834 ) use simulations to show that subwavelength‐dimensioned metal nanopatterns embedded in a thin film of amorphous silicon (a‐Si) significantly enhance its optical absorbance, with more than 300% increase at 800 nm wavelength. Embedding such metal patterns inside a photovoltaic absorber concentrates the electromagnetic field associated with enhanced near‐field scattering in the vicinity of the pattern. Configured with an insulating coating, this optical metamedium is proposed as a means to increase the efficiency of thin film solar cells. The cover figure shows cross‐section views of the calculated power loss density (i.e. absorbance) in a 60 nm thick a‐Si film embedded with a 20 nm thick Ag nanopattern, demonstrating the advantage of embedment over surface or back contact placement of the pattern.