Optical absorption and photoluminescence of Ag interlayer modulated ZnO film in view of their application in Si solar cells

In this paper, the effect on the optical absorption efficiency and photoluminescence properties of monolayer ZnO and multilayer ZnO/Ag/ZnO films as anti-reflection layers of Si substrates were investigated. By adding Ag thin film to form the sandwich structures, the intensity of Raman scattering was enhanced, and the energy band structure of sandwich ZnO/Ag/ZnO films was optimized by changing the band gap and the Fermi level of ZnO. The absorption efficiency had a remarkable increase caused by interlayer Ag. Noticeably, the absorption efficiency rose several times in 1200–1500 nm region. This Ag interlayer modulated ZnO film can be one of the promising materials used in solar cells.