Fig. 1. Jsc enhancements of thin-film a-Si solar cells integrated with Ag lumpy nanoparticles and smoothly surfaced nanoparticles with the same size and size distribution. Inset: schematic drawings of the integration of the lumpy Ag particle with solar cells. [Reproduced with permission from Ref. 21. Copyright The Optical Society 2013.]

Fig. 2. Spectral characteristics of Si absorbance for the optimized Al (green), Ag (blue), and Au (red) nanoparticles placed on the front surface of an Si wafer compared with bare silicon. [Reproduced with permission from [11]. Copyright The American Institute of Physics 2012.]

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram depicting the dip-coating process to integrate nanoparticles (NPs onto the top surface of silicon solar cells (Scs). The real photograph of the experimental setup is included. [Reproduced with permission from [10]. Copyright The Optical Society 2012.]

Fig. 4. (a) Schematic diagram showing the structure of the plasmonic solar module. (b) Enlarged schematic cross section of the solar cells integrated with silver lumpy nanoparticles. (c) Photo of the plasmonic thin-film module. The white circles provide an example of where the EQE is measured on a solar cell for the Jsc mapping.

Fig. 5. Jsc enhancement mapping produced from the EQE data for the solar minimodule containing 13 small solar cells integrated with 200 nm lumpy nanoparticles at a 5% coverage density compared with the reference module without nanoparticle integration.

Fig. 6. Statistics of the major parameters: (a) Jsc, (b) fill factor, (c) Voc, and (d) efficiency of the solar cells in the solar modules with (red) and without (blue) the nanoparticle integration.

Fig. 7. (a) Measured EQE curve of the highest efficiency solar cell with nanoparticles compared to a reference solar cell without nanoparticles. Inset: enhancement of EQE. (b) Current density versus voltage curves for the highest efficiency solar cell with nanoparticles and the nanoplasmonic module compared to a reference solar cell without nanoparticles.