E-beam deposited Ag-nanoparticles plasmonic organic solar cell and its absorption enhancement analysis using FDTD-based cylindrical nano-particle optical model

Abstract

We report the plasmon-assisted photocurrent enhancement in Ag-nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) embedded PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM organic solar cells, and systematically investigate the causes of the improved optical absorption based on a cylindrical Ag-NPs optical model which is simulated with a 3-Dimensional finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The proposed cylindrical Ag-NPs optical model is able to explain the optical absorption enhancement by the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) modes, and to provide a further understanding of Ag-NPs shape parameters which play an important role to determine the broadband absorption phenomena in plasmonic organic solar cells. A significant increase in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the plasmonic solar cell was experimentally observed and compared with that of the solar cells without Ag-NPs. Finally, our conclusion was made after briefly discussing the electrical effects of the fabricated plasmonic organic solar cells.

Performance of hybrid buffer Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate) layers doped with plasmonic silver nanoparticles

“…It has to be mentioned that this is an observation of the optical behavior of the samples which is not straightforward related to their electrical performance when incorporated in a full OPV device. However, the shape and the size of the particles in the present study (due to their cyclindrical shape), as discussed earlier [29,33] could possibly provide a benefit through the plasmonic excitations at the corners of the cylinders and promote the enhancement in absorption within the active layer.…”

“…2f inset). EBE is capable of producing these kind of cylindrical NPs and as shown elsewhere [29] such particles can have an impact in the strong electric field enhancement arising from the corners of the cylinders that can be coupled to the photoactive absorption region [29,33]. Results out of this analysis are summarized in Table 1.…”

Enhanced performance of polymer solar cells with a monolayer of assembled gold nanoparticle films fabricated by Langmuir–Blodgett technique

“…3a and d). The J sc enhancement is mainly attributed to the increase in active layer absorption resulted from increased optical field by localized surface plasmon resonance of Au NPs [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. As shown in Fig.…”

“…Other than this, metal nanostructures such as Au and Ag, exhibiting localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR) property, could be incorporated into thin film photovoltaic (PV) devices for enhancing the absorption of the active layer. Several groups have demonstrated this concept in both small-molecule and polymeric organic solar cells, with both increased absorption in the active layer and improved photocurrent [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. It is suspected that the incorporation of metal nanostructures into the active layer possibly leads to quenching of photogenerated excitons for organic solar cells.…”

Performance enhancement of plasmonics silicon solar cells using Al2O3/In NPs/TiO2 antireflective surface coating

“…Recently, the depositing of metallic nanoparticles (NPs), such Ag NPs and Au NPs, on the top and/or bottom surface(s) of silicon (Si) based solar cells has been employed as an innovative method to increase the light trapping as well as to enhance the photovoltaic performance of such cells because metallic NPs can be resonantly coupled with incident light and scatter partially incident light into the active absorbance layer [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. The far-field scattering from the metallic NPs and the near-field enhanced localized field in the vicinity of the metallic NPs have been recognized as being able to boost the light absorption of the solar cells.…”