Dipolar and quadrupolar resonance wavelengths of SiO2/Au nanoshell surface plasmons are designed at 560nm to enhance the light trapping in thin film solar cells.In order to quantitatively describe the light trapping effect,the forward-scattering efficiency(FSE)and the light trapping efficiency(LTE) are proposed by considering the light scattering direction of SiO2/Au nanoshells.Based on the Mie theory, the FSE and the LTE are calculated for SiO2/Au nanoshells of different dimensions, and the contributions of the dipolar and quadrupolar modes to the light trapping effect are analyzed in detail.When the surface coverage of nanoshells is 5%, the LTEs are 21.7% and 46.9% for SiO2/Au nanoshells with sizes of(31 nm, 69nm) and(53nm, 141 nm), respectively.The results indicate that the SiO2/Au nanoshell whose quadrupolar mode peak is designed to the strongest solar energy flux density of the solar spectrum facilitates the further enhancement of light harvesting in thin film solar cells.