The plasmonics front electrodes applied to thin film solar cells

Latest investigations in photovoltaic have generated interest in thin-film technologies with nanostructural modifications. In this paper we concentrate mainly on the technological experiments, as well as the structure and the composition control of the components of a thin silicon solar cell by means of electron microscopy as well as optical transmission and reflection analysis. Scattering and absorption from nanoparticles and their location within the multilayer solar cell are considered. Manufacturing Ag pellets with the desired shape and size makes the experiment even more difficult. The ZnO layers with relatively large Ag particles, exhibit favorable angle scattering leading to increased optical length and the layers with very small Ag particles (2.5 nm) located in the vicinity of the absorber show the excitation of surface plasmons increasing the absorption and influencing the frequency spectrum. We obtained a series of 5x5 cm2 samples with homogeneously distributed nano-crystalline Ag particles with high degree of control of nano-particle diameter size.