Nanotechnology for Single Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell Applications

Solar cells are receiving a lot of attention due to the ongoing climate debate and attempts to implement more green energy sources to reduce the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Single crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells with better stability over a long time period compared to other silicon based solar cells have taken a main position in the solar cell market. As new solar cell technology continually develops, the disadvantage of the relatively high cost of electricity generated related to low cell efficiency becomes one of top issues with c-Si solar cells. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of nanotechnologies, in particular plasmonic metal nanoparticles (MNPs), black silicon (b-Si) nanostructures and horizontally-grown silicon nanowires (SiNWs) structures, for cell efficiency enhancement of c-Si solar cells through numerical simulation and experimental demonstrations.