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Improved performance by plasmon resonance in GaAs solar cells: a numerical expectation

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Abstract

The planar heterojunction solar cells based on the GaAs films doped with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) are investigated by a finite-difference time-domain method. The numerical results show that Au NPs effectively increase the light absorption and short-circuit current (Jsc) of GaAs solar cells, when saving GaAs consumption by reducing film thickness. For the GaAs film of 200 nm in thickness, the presence of Au NPs boosts the device Jsc up to 36.94 mA·cm−2, 1.29 times that of the counterpart device without Au NPs. In addition, one requires the pure GaAs film of 500–600 nm in thickness in order to get the absorption and Jsc comparable to those from the 200-nm-thick GaAs film doped with Au NPs. It is revealed that the improved Jsc upon do** with Au NPs predominantly originates from the increased absorption of GaAs film as the result of the plasmon resonance effect of Au NPs excited by incident photons. Our results demonstrate that do** photon-harvesting layer with Au NPs is an effective strategy to prepare the solar cells with a strong spectral response and a reduced material consumption.

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摘要

采用时域有限差分方法研究了金纳米粒子 (Au NPs) 掺杂的砷化镓薄膜的**面异质结太阳能电池。数值模拟结果表明, 金纳米粒子掺杂能有效提高砷化镓太阳能电池的光吸收和短路电流 (Jsc), 同时可以减小GaAs薄膜的厚度, 减少材料的使用、节省成本。当GaAs薄膜的厚度为 200 nm时, Au NPs掺杂可以将器件的Jsc提高到 36.94 mA cm−2 (约为不掺杂器件的1.29倍), 而不掺杂Au NPs的GaAs厚度需要达到 500–600 nm, 才能获得与此相当的吸收率与Jsc。掺杂Au NPs可以明显提高器件的Jsc, 主要由于金纳米粒子表面产生等离子共振, 从而增加GaAs薄膜的吸收。因此, 光吸收层中掺杂Au NPs是一种既保证器件有**光谱响应又能减少材料消耗的太阳电池有效制备策略。

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11974353 and 12374018) and the University Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (Nos. 2022AH051578and 2023AH051543).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China

    Yang Wang, Zhi-Yang Wan, Jia-** Kuang & Ming-Tai Wang

  2. University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Yang Wang, Zhi-Yang Wan & Jia-** Kuang

  3. School of Electronic Engineering, Huainan Normal University, Huainan, 232000, China

    Yang Wang

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Wang, Y., Wan, ZY., Kuang, JJ. et al. Improved performance by plasmon resonance in GaAs solar cells: a numerical expectation. Rare Met. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-024-02856-w

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