Design of Nanoplasmonic Solar Cells based on Optical mode excitation

To enhance light absorption in thin film solar cells, we propose and investigate several approaches to design dielectric and plasmonic nanostructures for efficient excitement of numerous optical modes in the solar cells, leading to an increase in the number of absorbed photons within absorbing layer. Two-dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain (2D-FDTD) method is employed to model light interaction with the proposed structures and to investigate the effect of solar cell parameters on the optical modes excitation. It is shown that several optical modes can be excited and adjusted by placing one dimensional dielectric and plasmonic quasi-periodic nanogratings on top and at the bottom of the active layer, respectively.