Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications
Controlling optical absorption in metamaterial absorbers for plasmonic solar cells
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
1-1-2015
Volume
9546
Journal
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1117/12.2190396
Abstract
Metals in the plasmonic metamaterial absorbers for photovoltaics constitute undesired resistive heating. However, tailoring the geometric skin depth of metals can minimize resistive losses while maximizing the optical absorbance in the active semiconductors of the photovoltaic device. Considering experimental permittivity data for InxGa1-xN, absorbance in the semiconductor layers of the photovoltaic device can reach above 90%. The results here also provides guidance to compare the performance of different semiconductor materials. This skin depth engineering approach can also be applied to other optoelectronic devices, where optimizing the device performance demands minimizing resistive losses and power consumption, such as photodetectors, laser diodes, and light emitting diodes.