Light trapping using dimer of spherical nanoparticles based on titanium nitride for plasmonic solar cells

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that titanium nitride (TiN) dimer nanoparticles significantly enhance light absorption in photovoltaic cells, outperforming traditional metals like Ag, Au, and Al in the visible and near-infrared spectrum.

Contribution

The paper introduces TiN as a viable plasmonic material for solar cells, showing superior light absorption and scattering compared to conventional metals through designed spherical dimer nanoparticles.

Findings

TiN nanoparticles increase silicon absorption from 19% to 75%.

TiN dimers have the highest absorption cross-section among tested materials.

Maximum optical absorption efficiency of TiN nanostructures is 35.46%.

Abstract

Light-trapping mechanisms with plasmonics are an excellent way to increase the efficiency of photovoltaics. Plasmonic dimer-shaped nanoparticles are effective in light absorption and scatterings, and there is hardly any research on dimer TiN nanoparticle-based PV. This paper demonstrated that titanium nitride could be a suitable substitute for other plasmonic materials in the visible and near-infrared spectrum. We designed a TiN-based spherical dimer plasmonic nanoparticle for photovoltaic applications. We conducted comparison analyses with the metals Ag, Au, and Al to ascertain the performance of TiN as a plasmonic material. Silicon had an average absorption power of ~19%, and after incorporating TiN nanoparticles, the average absorbed power increased significantly to ~75% over the whole spectral range. TiN dimer nanoparticle had the highest absorption cross-section, Qab value ~6.2 W/m^2 greater than Ag, Au, and Al had a fraction of light scattered into the substrate value greater than Au, Al and comparable to Ag. TiN dimer exhibited better absorption enhancement, g for the whole spectral range than Ag, Au, and Al dimers for a radius of 15 nm with a peak value greater than 1. The maximum optical absorption efficiency of the plasmonic TiN nanostructures was ~35.46%.