Comparison of Nanohole-Type and Nanopillar-Type Patterned Metallic Electrodes Incorporated in Organic Solar Cells

Abstract

Both the nanohole- and nanopillar-type patterned metallic electrodes (PMEs) have been introduced in organic solar cells (OSCs) for improving device performances experimentally, but there is few work addressing the similarities and differences between them. In this theoretical work, we systematically compare the impact of the nanohole- and nanopillar-type PMEs on the performance of an OSC based on hybridized cavity resonances. By optimizing the geometrical parameters of each PME, we obtained an interesting result that the integrated absorption efficiencies in the active layer with different optimized PMEs are almost the same (both are equal to 82.4%), outperforming that of the planar control by 9.9%. Though the absorption enhancement spectra of the two different optimal devices are similar as well, the mechanisms of light trapping at the corresponding enhancement peaks are distinct from each other. In a comprehensive view, the nanopillar-type PME is suggested to be applied in the present system, since its optimal design has a moderate filling ratio, which is much easier to fabricate than its counterpart. This work could contribute to the development of high-efficiency OSCs.

Research Progress in Organic Photomultiplication Photodetectors

“…In most of the work, the stabilities of the organic PM devices are not discussed, which is crucial to solve before putting them into practical applications. Moreover, the introduction of metal micro/nano structures into organic PM photodetectors should be consolidated with more attention as a feasible approach of manipulating the carrier generation and distribution like in organic solar cells [ 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 ]. It is emphasized that, recently, organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite photodetectors have also been reported with extremely high quantum efficiency [ 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 ] of which the principles were explained based on the trapped carrier assisted carrier tunneling or ion migration effect.…”

Effect of photogenerated carrier distribution on performance enhancement of photomultiplication organic photodetectors

“…The refractive indices and extinction coefficients of other materials used in this work are extracted from Refs. [34,35]. The exciton generation originates from the absorption of photons, so we calculated the wavelength-dependent absorption efficiency, η( ), of the active layer, and the corresponding integrated absorption efficiency (ηI) over the wavelength range between 300 nm and 650 nm was also calculated.…”

Recent process of plasma effect in organic solar cells

“…Through employing the metal electrode into different nanopatterns such as dual metallic nanostructures, periodic structure of 2-D, 3-D grating, nanowire network, bilayer of nanosquare array, patterned metallic electrode and random structures, the light harvesting of active layer was distinctly improved by optical and electrical effect such as SPR, LSPR, the combined effect of the micro-cavity resonance, local near field enhancement and light scattering [84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95]. For instance, metal grating back electrode of low-bandgap OSCs with width and height of 700 and 40 nm have been prepared by the PDMS nanoimprinted method, respectively [96].…”