Improvement efficiency of thin-film solar cell by plasmonic properties of silver

Thin-film silicon solar cells need light trapping mechanisms to enhance the efficiency due to silicon's weak absorption of light. In this paper, by use of rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA), we propose and simulate a light-trapping quasi-photonic crystal plasmonic thin-film silicon solar cell consisting of an anti-reflection coating (ARC) with refractive index nAR = 1.9 and thickness (TAR = 0.06 μm), a silicon active layer with thickness Tc = 0.45 μm, a grating surfaces composed of silver and a one-dimensional quasi-photonic crystal composed of SiO2/Si layers. Results show that for proposed structure the cell efficiency arrive to 14.3% for TM with p = 0.181 μm and 11.71% for TE mode with p = 0.42 μm which has a significant increase compare usual and similar thin-film silicon solar cells.