Short-circuit current-density enhancement of silicon solar cells using plasmonics antireflective coating and luminescent downshifting

The combination of plasmonic scattering of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) embedded in SiO
₂
layer and luminescent downshifting (LDS) of Eu-doped phosphor layer applied on silicon solar cells to enhance photovoltaic performances was demonstrated. By annealing 3, 5, and 7 nm thick silver films at 200 °C for 30 min under ambient H
₂
to form Ag NPs of various dimensions were obtained, which corresponding to the average dimensions of Ag-NPs are 20.13, 25.03, and 32.14 nm determining by SEM images. The optical and electrical properties of the cells with Ag-NPs embedded in a SiO
₂
antireflection coating (ARC) were characterized firstly by optical reflectance, absorbance, and external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements. Larger AgNPs dimension of 32.14 nm exhibited a larger short-circuit current-density (J
_sc
) enhancement of 31.24 %, which is higher than that of 30.90% for Ag-NPs dimension of 25.03 nm and 28.64% for Ag-NPs dimension of 20.13 nm. The combined effects of plasmonic scattering and LDS are studied by applying Ag-NPs and Eu-doped phosphor particles within SiO
₂
ARC, which the J
_sc
enhancement can be further enhanced from 28.64% to 29.37%.