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In this era of growing energy demand, the recently explored perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have evolved into a potentially viable alternative because of their cost effectiveness and high efficiency. Despite the immense research interest attracted by perovskite solar cells, their commercialization remains constrained by their instability and toxic nature. Among the different advanced solar cells technologies, the application of metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) with plasmonic effects is an alternative, practical approach to improve the stability and enhance the generation and transport of photons and charge carriers. Besides, MNPs improve light absorption and scattering in the active layer, in addition to the expansion of electronic properties by decreasing the binding excitation energy. Herein a synopsis of the importance of PSCs and the utilization of plasmonic NPs to improve their performance is presented. In addition, the existing endeavors to incorporate these plasmonic structures into indoor photovoltaic and semitransparent PSCs are reviewed.

Solar energy technologies provide solutions for the effective exploitation of internet of things (IoT)‐based applications such as smart devices. Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) fabricated from π‐conjugated carbon‐based semiconductors have shown great potential for indoor applications based on exceptional properties that include small current leakage under dim lighting, large absorption coefficient, and low‐cost solution processes. However, organic cells need additional enhancements, such as improving their dim light absorption and exploiting suitable bandgap materials, to make the best use of indoor lighting photons. This article highlights the crucial role of the theoretical basis of photovoltaics and reviews the effect of active layer thickness. Furthermore, the crucial advancements in material design for indoor OPVs are highlighted herein. Lastly, the contribution of plasmonic effect of metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) to improve the performance of OPVs is elaborated, which could contribute to raising the efficiency of energy conversion and reaching production scale criteria.

Embedding nanoparticles (NPs) in the buffer layer of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (BHJ PSCs) excites the surface plasmonic polaritons and enhances the pathlength of the light in the solar cells. On the other hand, embedding NPs in the active layer significantly improves absorption and increases the production of electron-hole (e-h) pairs in BHJ PSCs. Increasing the volume ratio of NPs embedded in BHJ PSCs enables the direct interfacing of the NPs with the active layer, which then serves as a charge recombination center. Therefore, this study integrates the aforementioned phenomena by exploiting the effects of embedding plasmonic Au@Ag NPs in the buffer and active layers of PSC and then determining the optimum volume ratio of Au@Ag NPs. The results show the absorption is increased across the 350–750 nm wavelength region, and the PCE of the device with embedded Au@Ag in two locations is enhanced from 2.50 to 4.24%, which implies a 69.6% improvement in the PCE in comparison to the reference cell. This improvement is contributed by the combined localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effects of multi-positional Au@Ag NPs, spiky durian-shaped morphology of Au@Ag NPs, and optimized volume ratio of Au@Ag NPs embedded in the PEDOT: PSS and PTB7:PC71BM layers.

The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effects of nanoparticles (NPs) are effective for enhancing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs). In this study, spiky durian-shaped Au@Ag core-shell NPs were synthesized and embedded in the hole transport layer (HTL) (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)) of PTB7:PC71BM bulk-heterojunction OSCs. Different volume ratios of PEDOT:PSS-to-Au@Ag NPs (8%, 10%, 12%, 14%, and 16%) were prepared to optimize synthesis conditions for increased efficiency. The size properties and surface morphology of the NPs and HTL were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). UV–Vis spectroscopy and current density–voltage (J-V) analysis were used to investigate the electrical performance of the fabricated OSCs. From the results, we observed that the OSC with a volume ratio of 14% (PEDOT:PSS–to–Au@Ag NPs) performed better than others, where the PCE was improved from 2.50% to 4.15%, which is a 66% increase compared to the device without NPs.