Plasmonic core-shell metal-organic nanoparticles enhanced dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

We present an investigation on introducing core-shell Au@PVP nanoparticles (NPs) into dye-sensitized solar cells. As a novel core-shell NPs structure, Au@PVP present not only the chemical stability to iodide/triiodide electrolyte, but also the adhesiveness to dye molecules, which could help to localize most of dye molecules around plasmonic NPs, hence increasing the optical absorption consequently the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the device. We obtain a PCE enhancement of 30% from 3.3% to 4.3% with incorporation of Au@PVP NPs. Moreover, the device performance with different concentration of Au@PVP NPs from 0 to 12.5 wt% has been studied, and we draw the conclusion that the performance of DSCs could be well improved through enhancing the light absorption by local surface plasmon (LSP) effect from Au@PVP NPs with an optimized concentration.

Silver Nanoparticles as Artificial Antennas for Enhanced Light-Harvesting and Charge Transfer in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

“…8, the open-circuit voltage (Voc) of plasmonenhanced DSSCs and TiO 2 -only DSSC are almost the same, while the short-circuit current density (Jsc) significantly increased by introducing Ag@SiO 2 NPs. The improvement of Jsc in the plasmon enhanced DSSCs was mainly caused by the increase of photocurrent due to the enhanced light absorption of dye with the help of localized surface plasmons (LSPs) [23][24][25][29][30][31].…”

“…One of the important issues in plasmonic DSSCs is the stability of the NPs [31]. When introduced, metal NPs makes direct contact with the iodide/triodide-based liquid electrolyte, several problems arise, such as recombination, back reaction of the excited electrons, and corrosion of NPs.…”

“…When introduced, metal NPs makes direct contact with the iodide/triodide-based liquid electrolyte, several problems arise, such as recombination, back reaction of the excited electrons, and corrosion of NPs. Core shell have recently been applied to address these issues [31].…”

Plasmonic effect of silver nanoparticles intercalated into mesoporous betalain-sensitized-TiO2 film electrodes on photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells

“…Noble plasmonic metal nanostructures, such as gold (Au), silver (Ag) [18,19], aluminum (Al) [20], their alloys [16], and their core-shell formation [21][22][23][24][25], have been incorporated into DSSCs to effectively utilize the incident photon and improve cell performance. Many methods, both chemical and physical categories, including, wet chemical [26], polyol process [27], seed-mediated growth [28], photochemical [29], sonochemical [30], electrochemical [31], bioinspired [32], sputtering [33], and laser ablation [34], which have been, hitherto, reportedly employed to synthesize various plasmonic Ag nanostructures, possess one disadvantage or the other, such as toxic reducing agents, impurities, organic solvents, or may require special condition like high-temperature or low-pressure environment, and sometimes expensive and time-consuming procedures may be involved [35].…”

INFLUENCE OF ACTIVE NANO PARTICLE SIZE AND MATERIAL COMPOSITION ON MULTIPLE QUANTUM EMITTER ENHANCEMENTS: THEIR ENHANCEMENT AND JAMMING EFFECTS (Invited Paper)

“…These properties have been considered, for instance, for nano-sensors to achieve enhanced non-invasive measurements of the electromagnetic properties of fluorescing molecules [17,18], optical invisibility [19,20], solar energy harvesting absorbers [21], and nano-antennas [3,4,22]. Moreover, recent reviews [23,24] clearly stress the importance of plasmonic-based nano-particles and their potential for a variety of biomedical applications.…”