Amorphous germanium optical cavity solar cells enhanced by plasmonic nanoparticles

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dc.contributor.authorBrady, Brendan
dc.contributor.supervisorBrolo, Alexandre Guimaraes
dc.date.accessioned2017-12-22T20:12:17Z
dc.date.copyright2017en_US
dc.date.issued2017-12-22
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Physics and Astronomyen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Science M.Sc.en_US
dc.description.abstractThin-film photovoltaics are of great interest due to decreased manufacturing costs, improved environmental sustainability and the potential for flexible, semi-transparent, and light-weight modules. The scientific literature contains a plethora of work incorporating wavelength scale nanostructures within thin-film solar cells to increase power conversion efficiency by trapping light inside solar cell absorbing layers. One category of nanostructures, namely plasmonic nanoparticles, theoretically show great promise for their light-trapping abilities but experimental success has been limited. In this work, solar cells were designed and fabricated to incorporate multiple light-trapping mechanisms, including optical cavity resonances, waveguide mode excitation, and plasmonic effects. Due to our novel design considerations, we demonstrate a 33% increase in Jsc originating from plasmon-based enhancement mechanisms. The experimental results are complemented and confirmed by well-matching simulations which are used to further investigate the light-trapping mechanisms. The concepts demonstrated in this work can be directly translated to next-generation transition metal dichalcogenide photovoltaic devices.en_US
dc.description.embargo2018-12-14
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/8915
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectSolar Cellsen_US
dc.subjectPlasmonicsen_US
dc.subjectLight-trappingen_US
dc.subjectThin-filmen_US
dc.subjectPhotovoltaicsen_US
dc.titleAmorphous germanium optical cavity solar cells enhanced by plasmonic nanoparticlesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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