Volumetric plasmonic resonator architecture for thin-film solar cells

We propose and demonstrate a design concept of volumetric plasmonic resonators that relies on the idea of incorporating coupled layers of plasmonic structures embedded into a solar cell in enhanced optical absorption for surface-normal and off-axis angle configurations, beyond the enhancement limit of individual plasmonic layers. For a proof-of-concept demonstration in a thin-film organic solar cell that uses absorbing materials of copper phthalocyanine/perylene tetracarboxylic bisbenzimidazole, we couple two silver grating layers such that the field localization is further extended within the volume of active layers. Our computational results show a maximum optical absorption enhancement level of similar to 67% under air mass 1.5 global illumination considering both polarizations. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3560446]