Increasing the optical absorption in a-Si thin films by embedding gold nanoparticles

The light conversion efficiency of traditional a-Si thin-film solar cells is limited by their low optical thicknesses, especially in the NIR. A possible approach to increase the light-trapping efficiency over the entire solar spectral range is to design solar-cell architectures which rely on the optical properties of plasmonic nanocomposite materials. We demonstrate that it is possible to have a controlled Gold nanoparticle optical absorption by varying the thickness of a covering a-Si thin-film. For thick a-Si films the Gold nanoparticle plasmon resonance vanishes likely due to the formation of a silicide. Optical absorption measurements as well as finite difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations were employed to determine the a-Si thickness-dependent optical absorption properties, which demonstrated a significantly increased optical absorption in a-Si.