Plasmonic effects for light concentration in organic photovoltaic thin films induced by hexagonal periodic metallic nanospheres

Abstract

We present a plasmonic nanostructure design by embedding a layer of hexagonal periodic metallic nanospheres between the active layer and transparent anode for bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. The hybrid structure shows broadband optical absorption enhancement from localized surface plasmon resonance with a weak dependence on polarization of incident light. We also theoretically study the optimization of the design to enhance the absorption up to 1.90 times for a typical hybrid active layer based on a low band gap material. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3577611

Nanoplasmonics: a frontier of photovoltaic solar cells

“…The optical gain due to light concentration is much larger than the electrical loss due to recombination, resulting in an optimum barrier thickness of a few nanometers [48] . This barrier can be realized by means of coating the semiconductor with a dielectric layer or coating the metal nanostructure with a dielectric shell [51] . The second category includes low-purity semiconductor materials.…”

Plasmonic Forward Scattering Effect in Organic Solar Cells: A Powerful Optical Engineering Method

“…Various approaches, including tandem structures267, surface texturing8, metal nanogratings9, resonance cavity10 and ray-optical light trapping systems111213 have been suggested to increase the optical absorption. Among these approaches, recently there has been growing interest in the use of metal nanoparticles (MNPs) in OPVs71415161718192021222324252627282930 because the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect of MNPs has the potential to boost the absorption of the active layer. In addition, the easy tunability of the optical properties by modifying size31, shape32 and surrounding materials33 of MNPs has shown high potential as an optical engineering tool in thin-film optoelectronic devices.…”

Wide-Angle and Polarization-Insensitive Perfect Absorber for Organic Photovoltaic Layers

“…W = 70 nm, P = 180 nm, h 1 = 30 nm, h 2 = 40 nm), an absorption peak over 91% at the wavelength of 500 nm was obtained up to 60 • of the incident angle, which is within the effective absorption band of the P3HT:PC 60 BM material (i.e. below 650 nm [22]). This omnidirectional absorption resonance is introduced by the metamaterial absorber constructed by a thin-film OPV layer sandwiched by top two-dimensional (2D) periodic nanopatterns and a bottom metal film.…”