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

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. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.