Bowtie-Shaped Plasmonic Nanoparticles-Enhanced Photovoltaic Anti-Reflective Coating

Light trapping is a promising technique that enhances sunlight absorption by solar cells. This paper presents a study of bow-tie-shaped nanoparticles embedded in the antireflection coating of photovoltaic solar cells, which enhances the optical transmission of the photovoltaic surface. Therefore, the optical path length for light penetration is increased through the semiconductor active layer. First, the fundamental electric field modes of a single nanoscaled bow-tie are examined under excitation of plane waves with different polarizations. Second, an array of bow-tie-shaped nanoparticles is embedded in an indium tin oxide layer of 80 nm thickness above an active layer of ultrathin hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). The proposed design demonstrates wideband enhancement in the visible and infrared spectrum, resulting in a total enhancement of 45 % over the a-Si:H without the anti-reflection coating.