Obtaining Spectral Sweeps from 3D Plasmonic Structures

Introduction

In the simulation standard article “Plasmonic Light Trapping Transforming Thin-Film Photovoltaics”, in 2015 finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm was used in 2D to propagate the light in thin film photovoltaic structure with and without metallic nanoparticles to simulate its plasmonic effect. The solid modelling module of Victory Mesh offers the capability to model such structures in 3D. solidex05 standard example produces the following structure:

A structure containing one of these particles was passed over to VictoryDevice for photovoltaic simulation. Three structures were generated. One with the gold nanoparticle in the oxide, another inside the silicon and one without any plasmons.

These structures were generated using the Delaunay meshing engine of VictoryMesh which lends itself well to complex geometrical shapes. Here is the mesh detail of the gold nanoparticle (plasmon) and the adjacent layers: