title: Integration of Light Trapping Silver Nanostructures in Hydrogenated Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells by Transfer Printing.
abstract: One of the potential applications of metal nanostructures is light trapping in solar cells, where unique optical properties of nanosized metals, commonly known as plasmonic effects, play an important role. Research in this field has, however, been impeded owing to the difficulty of fabricating devices containing the desired functional metal nanostructures. In order to provide a viable strategy to this issue, we herein show a transfer printing-based approach that allows the quick and low-cost integration of designed metal nanostructures with a variety of device architectures, including solar cells. Nanopillar poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) stamps were fabricated from a commercially available nanohole plastic film as a master mold. On this nanopatterned PDMS stamps, Ag films were deposited, which were then transfer-printed onto block copolymer (binding layer)-coated hydrogenated microcrystalline Si (µc-Si:H) surface to afford ordered Ag nanodisk structures. It was confirmed that the resulting Ag nanodisk-incorporated µc-Si:H solar cells show higher performances compared to a cell without the transfer-printed Ag nanodisks, thanks to plasmonic light trapping effect derived from the Ag nanodisks. Because of the simplicity and versatility, further device application would also be feasible thorough this approach.
authors.affiliation: Renewable Energy Research Center, Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan; h-mizuno@aist.go.jp.
authors.forename: Hidenori
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mizuno
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Photovoltaic Technologies, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sai
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Photovoltaic Technologies, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsubara
authors.affiliation: Renewable Energy Research Center, Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan.
authors.forename: Hidetaka
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takato
authors.affiliation: Renewable Energy Research Center, Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan.
authors.forename: Michio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kondo
mesh_terms: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes / Q000737:chemistry; D006859:Hydrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D008027:Light; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D011327:Printing; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D012993:Solar Energy
chemical_list: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; D012834:Silver; C013830:baysilon; D006859:Hydrogen; D012825:Silicon