Materials Science and Engineering Commons^™

Increasing Solar Energy Conversion Efficiency In Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Photovoltaic Devices With Plasmonic Perfect Meta – Absorbers, Jephias Gwamuri

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Solar photovoltaic (PV) devices are an established, technically-viable and sustainable solution to society’s energy needs, however, in order to reach mass deployment at the terawatt scale, further decreases in the levelized cost of electricity from solar are needed. This can be accomplished with thin-film PV technologies by increasing the conversion efficiency using sophisticated light management methods. This ensures absorption of the entire solar spectrum, while reducing semiconductor absorber layer thicknesses, which reduces deposition time, material use, embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions, and economic costs. Recent advances in optics, particularly in plasmonics and nanophotonics provide new theoretical methods to improve …