The effect of plasmonic particles on solar absorption in vertically aligned silicon nanowire arrays Available to Purchase

In this paper, we used the finite-difference time domain method to determine whether metallic caps provide plasmonic enhancement of absorption in vertically aligned silicon nanowire arrays. Metallic caps result naturally from the vapor-liquid-solid growth process, which uses metal catalyst particles to initiate growth. We found that gold, copper, and silver catalysts all decrease the integrated optical absorption across the solar spectrum.