Investigation and Simulation of the Refractive Index Effect on the Plasmonic Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells with Silver Ribbon Nanoplate

Solar cells have different efficiencies in different weather conditions and environments. Changing the environmental conditions leads to the change in the environmental refractive index. The change in the refractive index affects the efficiency of the solar cell. In this paper, we investigate and model the effect of changing the refractive index of the environment on a silicon solar cell with thickness of 500nm and silver ribbon nano-plates of width 25nm and height 50nm. We study the effect of refractive indices from 1 to 1.6 on the performance of the solar cell. The simulation results show that the best efficiency and absorption of plasmonic solar cell with silver ribbon nano-plates with width 25nm, height 50nm, and period 50nm are obtained in a refractive index of 1.2. The solar cell efficiency and fill factor are respectively evaluated as 12.45% and 83%. Finally, the open circuit voltage and short current density are calculated as 0.21V and 6.91mA/cm2, respectively.