Hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cell on glass substrate patterned by hexagonal nanocylinder array

The hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film solar cell fabricated on the glass substrate patterned by hexagonal nanocylinder array prepared by self-assembled SiO2 nanoparticles and nanosphere lithography was investigated. It is demonstrated that the short-circuit current of the patterned solar cell with 65 nm depth nanocylinder increases from 12.3 to 14.4 mA/cm(2), and the efficiency increases from 5.18% to 6.59% as compared to the flat solar cell. These phenomena suggest that both effective light trapping and localized surface plasmon lead to significant improvement of light absorption in amorphous silicon solar cells. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3515853]