title: Extreme light absorption by multiple plasmonic layers on upgraded metallurgical grade silicon solar cells.
abstract: We fabricate high-efficiency, ultrathin (∼12 μm), flexible, upgraded metallurgical-grade polycrystalline silicon solar cells with multiple plasmonic layers precisely positioned on top of the cell to dramatically increase light absorption. This scalable approach increases the optical absorptivity of our solar cells over a broad range of wavelengths, and they achieve efficiencies η ≈ 11%. Detailed studies on the electrical and optical properties of the developed solar cells elucidate the light absorption contribution of each individual plasmonic layer. Finite-difference time-domain simulations were also performed to yield further insights into the obtained results. We anticipate that the findings from this work will provide useful design considerations for fabricating a range of different solar cell systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering and ‡Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.
authors.forename: Duck Hyun
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jae Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maldonado
authors.forename: Anish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tuteja
authors.forename: Akram
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boukai