Influence of gold-silica nanoparticles on the performance of small-molecule bulk heterojunction solar cells

Abstract

a b s t r a c tLight trapping by gold (Au)-silica nanospheres and nanorods embedded in the active layer of small-molecule (SM) organic solar cell has been systematically compared. Nanorod significantly outperforms nanosphere because of more light scattering and higher quality factor for localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) triggered by nanorods. The optimum concentration of nanorod was characterized by charge carrier transport and morphology of the active layers. At optimum nanorod concentration, almost no change in the morphology of the active layer reveals that LSPR and scattering effects rather than the morphology are mainly responsible for the enhanced power conversion efficiency. In addition, the preliminary lifetime studies of the SM solar cells with and without Au-silica nanorods were conducted by measuring the current density-voltage characteristics over 20 days. The results show that plasmonic device with nanorods has no adverse impact on the device stability.

Effect of embedded nanoparticle surface chemistry on plasmonic organic photovoltaic devices

“…For NS, the film haze factors are almost the same as the reference without NPs from 400 to 800 nm. For NR, both H R and H T are significantly higher showing that more light is being scattered by NRs [56].…”

“…Since both core shell nanospheres (NS) and NRs can enhance absorption in the active layer of OPV devices, a systematic comparison of the geometric effect of incorporated NPs was made by Xu et al [56]. In this study, Au NSs with a core diameter of *25 nm and a silica shell thickness of *5 nm were synthesized.…”

“…In this study, Au NSs with a core diameter of *25 nm and a silica shell thickness of *5 nm were synthesized. Au NRs with a core diameter and length of *31 and *80 nm and a shell thickness of *5 nm were also prepared [56]. The LSPR peak of the NS and the transverse LSPR peak of the NR are almost the same while the longitudinal peak of the NR is at 680 nm [56].…”

“…Au NRs with a core diameter and length of *31 and *80 nm and a shell thickness of *5 nm were also prepared [56]. The LSPR peak of the NS and the transverse LSPR peak of the NR are almost the same while the longitudinal peak of the NR is at 680 nm [56]. These NPs were both incorporated at 1 wt% into the active layer of two ITO/PEDOT:PSS/p-DTS(FBTTh 2 ) 2 :PC 71 BM/Ca/Ag devices.…”

“…When NRs were similarly introduced, the PCE increased to 8.18% because of a very significant increase in the J sc . To understand the large difference in enhancement of device performance, a dimensionless quality factor Q LSPR defined as the ratio of the enhanced localized field around the NP and the incident field was derived and calculated for the NS and NR [56]. For the NS, the Q LSPR is a weak function of wavelength and is smaller than 25 throughout the spectral range 400-1000 nm.…”