SC06 – Absorption Enhancement of GaAs Thin Film Solar Cell using Hemisphere Core-shell Nanoparticles

A novel design of GaAs solar cell (SC) is proposed and analyzed. Hemisphere core shell structures are placed over the surface of the SC to harvest more energy and increase the solar cell efficiency. The GaAs and GaSb are used as core/shell materials to increase the wavelength coupling between the dual cores of the proposed structure. Moreover, the reflection is reduced which enhances the light absorption through the GaAs planar layer. This is due to the difference in the bandgaps between GaAs and GaSb The geometrical parameters of the proposed SC are studied by three dimensional finite difference time domain (3D FDTD) via Lumerical software package to achieve higher optical characteristics. The reported SC has an ultimate efficiency and short circuit current of 26% and 21.8 mA/cm² compared to 16.8% and 13.7 mA/cm² of planar GaAs SC without hemisphere design.