Role of metallic nanoparticles in the optoelectronic performance enhancement of InP ultrathin film solar cell

III-V material-based ultrathin Solar Cells (SCs) garnered a great deal of interest due to their benefits such as efficient charge transport, recycling of photons, adaptability, and material usage but suffer from low optical absorption due to thicker active material. In order to increase the optical absorption in the ultra-thin SC, metal nanoparticles (MNPs) are employed that scatter the incident light in the absorber layer resulting in higher optical absorption with the reduced requirement of active material. The role of MNPs in the efficiency improvement of InP SCs has not yet been explored. Therefore, in this paper, we have investigated the impact of plasmonic MNPs of different materials such as gold (Au), silver (Ag) and aluminium (Al) placed on the top of ITO coated 280 nm ultra-thin InP SC with FDTD simulations, which employ the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to increase the optical absorption by tuning the dimensions of the MNPs. The thickness of InP thin-film and an anti-reflective coating of ITO are optimized to achieve maximum absorption. In addition, the diameter and period of Au, Ag, and Al MNPs are also optimized to achieve higher optical Jsc, and results show that Au nanoparticle with diameter of 50 nm and period of 100 nm shows higher Jsc when compared to Ag and Al nanoparticles of optimized diameter. The device analysis shows the Au nanoparticles placed on the top surface of ITO coated InP ultrathin SC with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 22.3% outperform the Ag NPs and Al NPs ITO coated InP ultrathin SC and ITO/InP ultrathin SC without MNPs. •Optical performance of InP ultrathin film SC with metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) studied using FDTD method.•Optimized the InP thin film and ITO coating thickness to achieve optimum absorption.•Optimized the diameter and period of the different MNPs such as Au, Ag, Al.•Achieved higher PCE with InP ultrathin film SC with Au MNPs.