Elimination of small-sized Ag nanoparticles via rapid thermal annealing for high efficiency light trapping structure

• Published in: Applied surface science Vol. 315; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Bai, Yiming, Gao, Zheng, Chen, Nuofu, Liu, Hai, Yao, Jianxi, Ma, Shuang, Shi, Xiaoqiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01-10-2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Ag nanoparticles; Annealing; Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; Film rupture mechanism; Fluctuation; Light trapping structure; Nanoparticles; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Rapid thermal annealing; Silver; Solar cells; Surface chemistry; Trapping; Rapid thermal annealing; Light trapping structure; Film rupture mechanism; Ag nanoparticles; Nanoparticles; Trapping; Ruptures
• ISSN: 0169-4332; 1873-5584
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2014.07.029

•Rapid thermal annealing can restrain the formation of small-sized Ag nanoparticles compared with that of conventional in situ annealing.•The elimination of small-sized nanoparticles can be explained by the film fluctuation and rupture mechanism of dewetting theory under different heating rate.•Rapid thermal annealing is very conductive to ensure NPs at a very steady state due to the adequate energy obtained by the Ag film and instantaneously shrinks into NPs.•Compared to the reference device, a relative improvement of 10.73% in Jsc for poly-crystalline silicon thin film solar cell with Ag NPs was obtained.
Since the small-sized metallic nanoparticles (NPs) show high absorption ratio, eliminating small-sized NPs to obtain high efficiency light trapping structure in photovoltaic devices is particularly necessary. In the present work, we successfully restrained the formation of small-sized Ag NPs via magnetron sputtering followed by rapid thermal annealing, which is driven by the film fluctuation and rupture mechanism of dewetting theory. Relatively, a 10.73% increase of short-circuit current density was achieved when Ag NPs fabricated by rapid thermal annealing were used as light trapping structure of solar cells. This study validates the necessity of eliminating small-sized NPs experimentally and theoretically, which is helpful for obtaining high efficiency light trapping structure and understanding the metallic film annealing mechanism.