Exceeding the limit of plasmonic light trapping in textured screen-printed solar cells using Al nanoparticles and wrinkle-like graphene sheets

摘要

The solar cell market is predominantly based on textured screen-printed solar cells. Due to parasitic absorption in nanostructures, usingplasmonic processes to obtain an enhancement that exceeds 2.5% of the short-circuit photocurrent density is challenging. In thispaper, a 7.2% enhancement in the photocurrent density can be achieved through the integration of plasmonic Al nanoparticles andwrinkle-like graphene sheets. For the first time, we experimentally achieve Al nanoparticle-enhanced solar cells. An innovative thermalevaporation method is proposed to fabricate low-coverage Al nanoparticle arrays on solar cells. Due to the ultraviolet (UV) plasmonresonance of Al nanoparticles, the performance enhancement of the solar cells is significantly greater than that from Ag nanoparticles.Subsequently, we deposit wrinkle-like graphene sheets over the Al nanoparticle-enhanced solar cells. Compared with planar graphenesheets, the bend carbon layer also exhibits a broadband light-trapping effect. Our results exceed the limit of plasmonic light trapping intextured screen-printed silicon solar cells.