ИСТИНА

The development of alternative sources of energy such as solar photovoltaic devices is one of the urgent problems of our society. In the field of photovoltaics (PV) the primary tasks are to increase the solar cells efficiency and significant reduction in their price. For the crystalline silicon solar cells, the problem of increasing their efficacy was largely solved, however they are still very expensive. By contrast, organic solar cells are rather cheap in production, but have quite low efficiency so far [1]. That is why the development of various methods that allows to increase the organic solar cells efficiency is of prime importance [2]. One option to raise an efficiency of a PV solar cell is the use of plasmonic nanoparticles, which are embedded into the solar cell. Each nanoparticle serves then as a nanoantenna allowing concentrating (guiding) the incident electromagnetic field in the absorption area and thereby increases the efficiency of the solar cell [3]. Such nanostructures are already used in silicon solar cells, but technologies of the nanostructure deposition are very expensive and laborious. In this paper we review the recent progress in using plasmonic nanoparticles for improving the efficiency of the solar energy absorption in a PV solar cell with embedded plasmonic nanoparticles. Specifically, we will discuss how the nanoplasmonic particles can be used for guiding and concentrating the light for enhanced absorption, paying attention to both fundamentals and design considerations, as well as to realization of the broadband nanoplasmonic scattering to better utilize the incoming solar spectrum. Plus to that, we will discuss potential advantages of using dielectric nanoparticles in PV solar cells. This work was partially supported by the RFBR grant № 16-02-00816. References: 1. M. Gu, Z. Ouyang, J. Baohua et al., Nanophotonics 1 235 (2012). 
2. Z. Tang, W. Tress and O. Inganäs, Materials today 17, 389 (2014).
3. Novotny, B. Hecht, Principles of Nano-Optics, (Cambridge University Press, 2012). 4. H.A. Atwater and A. Polman, Nature Materials 9, 205 (2010).