Silver-Based Nanoparticles for Surface Plasmon Resonance in Organic Optoelectronics

Abstract

Organic optoelectronic devices including organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) and polymer solar cells (PSCs) have many advantages, including low‐cost, mechanical flexibility, and amenability to large‐area fabrication based on printing techniques, and have therefore attracted attention as next‐generation flexible optoelectronic devices. Although almost 100% internal quantum efficiency of OLEDs has been achieved by using phosphorescent emitters and optimizing device structures, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of OLEDs is still limited due to poor light extraction. Also, although intensive efforts to develop new conjugated polymers and device architectures have improved power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 8%–9%, device efficiency must be improved to >10% for commercialization of PSCs. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of metal nanoparticles (NPs) can be an effective way to improve the extraction of light produced by decay of excitons in the emission layer and by absorption of incident light energy within the active layer. Silver (Ag) NPs are promising plasmonic materials due to a strong SPR peak and light‐scattering effect. In this review, different SPR properties of Ag NPs are introduced as a function of size, shape, and surrounding matrix, and review recent progress on application of the SPR effect of AgNPs to OLEDs and PSCs.

Enhanced performance of layer-evolved bulk-heterojunction solar cells with Ag nanoparticles by sequential deposition

“…Metallic silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) are effective in organic active thin film due to their scattering performance, which lead to increase of the light absorption within an active layer [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Thus, the insertion of Ag NPs with optimized ratio into an active layer of the devices can significantly enhance the absorption, and increase the photo-generated charge carriers.…”

A green chemical method for synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles from solid-state decomposition of Schiff-bases derived from amino acid alanine complexes

“…Nanoparticles have been receiving persistent attentions due to their vast area of applications such as photocatalysis [1,2], biology [3,4], photonics [5], optoelectronics [6], surface-enhanced Raman scattering [7,8], and magnetism [9]. Nanoparticles, the building block for nanotechnology, are a class of materials with properties distinctly different from their bulk or molecular counterparts.…”

Dispersion control of Ag nanoparticles in bulk-heterojunction for efficient organic photovoltaic devices

“…To overcome these limitations, research efforts to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of OPVs are ongoing in the areas of materials development [3], new device architectures [4], improved nano phase separation [5], and optimized/enhanced light absorption/collection [6]. Metallic nanoparticles (NPs) can be used as sub-wavelength antennas, where the plasmonic near-field enhancement can be coupled to the semiconductor active layer, thus increasing its effective absorption cross-section [7,8].…”