Improving the optical properties of thin film plasmonic solar cells of InP absorber layer using nanowires

In this paper, a thin-film InP-based solar cell designed and simulated. The proposed InP solar cell has a periodic array of plasmonic back-reflector, which consists of a silver layer and two silver nanowires. The indium tin oxide (ITO) layer also utilized as an anti-reflection coating (ARC) layer on top. The design creates a light-trapping structure by using a plasmonic back-reflector and an anti-reflection coating layer on top, which increase the light absorption in the solar cell. The enhancement of light trapping was observed in the proposed configuration of the solar cell with an 1000 nm thick InP absorption layer, which improved the short-circuit current density and efficiency. The highest short-circuit current density and efficiency were determined 32.07 mA/cm2 and 26.6%, respectively, for the nanowire radiuses of R1=50 nm and R2= 120 nm. Therefore, this structure improves the ultimate efficiency of 38% compared with the InP-based solar cells counterparts.