Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Nanotechnology for Environmental Engineering (2020) 5:4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41204-020-0067-1 ORIGINAL PAPER Investigation and simulation of the efect of silver, aluminum, gold, and platinum nano‑ribbons on the efciency of amorphous silicon solar cell Esmaeil Sharif‑Kazemi 1  · Saeed Olyaee 1  · Mahmood Seifouri 2  · Hamed Afkham 1  · Ahmad Mohebzadeh‑Bahabady 1  · Farzaneh Adibzadeh 1 Received: 16 May 2019 / Accepted: 20 January 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 Abstract In this paper, we considered a silicon solar cell with some ribbon nanoparticles including silver (Ag), aluminum (Al), gold (Au), and platinum (Pt) ribbon nanoparticles. The dimensions of nanoparticles afect the absorption and efciency of solar cells. Here, various dimensions were examined, and the width, height, and period of the ribbon nanoparticle were taken into account. In this paper, we investigated the efect of height, width, period, and materials of ribbon nanoparticles by fnite- diference time-domain method. The simulation results show that the maximum absorption was obtained equal to 12.90% by using the silver ribbon nanoparticles having width (x) of 25 nm, height (h) of 50 nm, and period (p) of 50 nm. In this case, the fll factor was obtained as 81.31%. Keywords Solar cell · Absorption · Efciency · Ribbon nanoparticles Introduction Considering the development of industries, the human need for electrical energy, and the limitation of fossil fuels have increased the focus on solar cells in recent years. Diferent generations of solar cells are provided. One type of solar cell is built and developed on the basis of amorphous sili- con. The methods for improving these cells use plasmonic structures which, by trapping light, increase the absorption coefcient and power conversion efciency (PCE) of solar cells. Plasmons are quantum units of surface electromagnetic waves occurring on the metal boundary and dielectric and having a permeable property in a vertical direction [1–6]. Atoms have diferent bonding gaps in amorphous materi- als. In these materials, the coordination between the atomic band gap and its nearest neighbors is similar to crystalline materials, but these similarities decrease as the distance increases. This diference provides the energy required to move from one region to another. Amorphous silicon has a direct bandgap and high absorption coefcient. A critical defect in a silicon solar cell is a hanging bond, meaning that a valence electron does not engage in its closest neighbor. The hanging bond acts as a potential trap in recombinant centers, stimulates load carriers, and reduces carrier lifetime. Enhancement of power conversion efciency and decreas- ing the materials and fabrication costs are the most impor- tant issues improvement of the performance of solar cells [7]. Various methods have been used to increase the absorp- tion and efciency of solar cells in recent years. The use of new materials is one of the ways to increase the absorption and efciency of solar cells [8–11]. Perovskite material is low cost and introduced as a novel and attractive absorbent material in solar cells. Also, plasmonic nanoparticles play an important role in improving the performance of solar cells [7]. Trapping plasmonic light through metal elements is per- formed to increase the efciency of solar cells. The relation- ship between metal and dielectric on the plasmon surface is supported by the superfcial oscillations of conducting electrons. The use of plasmonics improves the efciency of solar cells by trapping or focusing light on the absorbent * Saeed Olyaee s_olyaee@sru.ac.ir 1 Nano-photonics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratory (NORLab), Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University (SRTTU), Tehran 16788-15811, Iran 2 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University (SRTTU), Tehran 16788-15811, Iran