Plasmon-enhanced polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells with solution-processable Ag nanoparticles

Abstract

We report the plasmon-enhanced polymer bulk-heterojunction solar cells with Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) obtained via chemical method. Here, the AgNPs films with different particle densities are introduced between the poly (3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) buffer layer and the poly (3-hexythiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT: PCBM) layer. By improving the optical absorption of the active layer owing to the localized surface plasmons, the power conversion efficiency of the solar cells is increased compared with the control device. It is shown that the efficiency of the device increases with the density of AgNPs. For the device employing higher density, the resulted power conversion efficiency is found to increase from 2.89% to 3.38%, enhanced by 16.96%.

Keywords

Solar Cell / Power Conversion Efficiency / Organic Solar Cell / Photoactive Layer / Plasmon Resonance Peak

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