Surface plasmon-enhanced photovoltaic device

摘要

Photovoltaic devices are driven by intense photoemission of “hot” electrons from a suitable nanostructured metal. The metal should be an electron source with surface plasmon resonance within the visible and near-visible spectrum range (near IR to near UV (about 300 to 1000 nm)). Suitable metals include silver, gold, copper and alloys of silver, gold and copper with each other. Silver is particularly preferred for its advantageous opto-electronic properties in the near UV and visible spectrum range, relatively low cost, and simplicity of processing.

主权项

1. An inorganic electronic device comprising:
a nanostructured metal electron source layer comprising a roughened metal surface having surface irregularities in the nm to tens of nm range and a surface plasmon resonance within the visible and near-visible spectrum range; a semiconductor layer in contact with the metal electron source layer, wherein the metal electron source layer and the semiconductor layer form an interface that is a Schottky barrier; and an electrode layer in contact with the semiconductor layer, wherein the electrode layer forms an ohmic contact to the semiconductor layer; wherein the nanostructured metal electron source layer comprises silver; wherein the semiconductor layer comprises TiO2; and wherein the nanostructured silver layer is formed by bombarding a silver target with an ultrafast laser pulse to deposit a thin film of silver nanoparticles onto the layer of TiO2 and roughening the silver thin film by a series of oxidation-reduction cycles to provide surface irregularities in the nm to tens of nm range.