title: Multiscale Study of Plasmonic Scattering and Light Trapping Effect in Silicon Nanowire Array Solar Cells.
abstract: Nanometallic structures that support surface plasmons provide new ways to confine light at deep-subwavelength scales. The effect of light scattering in nanowire array solar cells is studied by a multiscale approach combining classical electromagnetic (EM) and quantum mechanical simulations. A photovoltaic device is constructed by integrating a silicon nanowire array with a plasmonic silver nanosphere. The light scatterings by plasmonic element and nanowire array are obtained via classical EM simulations, while current-voltage characteristics and optical properties of the nanowire cells are evaluated quantum mechanically. We found that the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of photovoltaic device is substantially improved due to the local field enhancement of the plasmonic effect and light trapping by the nanowire array. In addition, we showed that there exists an optimal nanowire number density in terms of optical confinement and solar cell PCE.
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Xiamen University , Xiamen 361005, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lingyi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University , Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8938-1927
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Computational Science Research Center , Beijing 100193, P. R. China.|Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong , Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: ChiYung
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3860-2934
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yam