Plasmon-enhanced internal photoemission for photovoltaics: Theoretical efficiency limits

Plasmon-enhanced internal photoemission in metal-semiconductor Schottky junctions has recently been proposed as an alternative photocurrent mechanism for solar cells. Here, we identify and discuss the requirements for efficient operation of such cells and analyze their performance limits under standard solar illumination. We show that the maximum efficiency limit is 20%.We acknowledge the Australian Research Council and the Australian Solar Institute for financial support