Strong Photocurrent Enhancements in Highly Efficient Flexible Organic Solar Cells by Adopting a Microcavity Configuration

Chen, Kung-Shih; Yip, Hin‐Lap; Salinas, José-Francisco; Xu, Yun‐Xiang; Chueh, Chu‐Chen; Jen, Alex K.‐Y.

doi:10.1002/adma.201306323

Cited by 66 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The state‐of‐the‐art single‐junction OSCs with plasmonic cavity structures,1, 2, 3 textured light trapping structures,4, 5 multiplasmonic effects,6, 7, 8 morphological implementation,9, 10 bandgap tuning,11, 12 and solution fabrication method13 now provide over 8–11% of power conversion efficiency (PCE) based on the above approaches or a combination of these approaches. However, over the past few years, a serious difficulty has also been observed in the increase of the PCE of single‐junction OSCs to over 12%.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrathin Organic Solar Cells with a Power Conversion Efficiency of Over ≈13.0%, Based on the Spatial Corrugation of the Metal Electrode–Cathode Fabry–Perot Cavity

Park

2018

Advanced Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The application of nanophotonic structures for organic solar cells (OSCs) is quite popular and successful, and has led to increased optical absorption, better spectral overlap with solar irradiances, and improved charge collection. Significant improvements in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) have also been reported, exceeding 11%. Nonetheless, with the given material properties of OSCs with low optical absorption, narrow spectrum, short transport length of carriers, and nonuniform photocarrier generations resulting from the nanophotonic structure, the PCE of single‐junction OSCs has been stagnant over the past few years, at a barrier of 12%. Here, an ultrathin inverted OSC structure with the highest efficiency of ≈13.0%, while being made from widely used organic materials, is demonstrated. By introducing a smooth spatial corrugation to the vertical plasmonic cavity enclosing the active layer, in‐plane propagation modes and hybridized Fabry–Perot cavity modes inside the corrugated cavity are derived to achieve an ultralow Q, uniform coverage of optical absorption, in addition to uniform photocarrier generation and transport. As the first demonstration of ultra‐broadband absorption with the introduction of spatial corrugation to the ultrathin metal film electrode–cathode Fabry–Perot cavity, future applications of the same concept in other light‐harvesting devices utilizing different materials and structures are expected.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrathin Organic Solar Cells with a Power Conversion Efficiency of Over ≈13.0%, Based on the Spatial Corrugation of the Metal Electrode–Cathode Fabry–Perot Cavity

Park

2018

Advanced Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This electrode must be deposited when the absorber layer has already been deposited on the substrate and a nonaggressive deposition procedure needs to be used. Several different options have been considered, such as low-temperature annealed indium tin oxide (ITO), [42][43][44][45][46][47][48] a three-layer architecture combining a dielectric layer, an ultra thin metal layer, and a second dielectric layer, [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64] PEDOT, [65][66][67] silver grid, 68 graphene, [69][70][71] carbon nanotubes, 67,72 and silver nanowires (AgNW). [73][74][75][76][77][78] However, the need for a nondestructive deposition technique for the top semi-transparent electrode is probably not the major issue that semi-transparent OPV cells must overcome before becoming an industrially viable solution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semi-transparent polymer solar cells

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Over the last three decades, progress in the organic photovoltaic field has resulted in some device features which make organic cells applicable in electricity generation configurations where the standard silicon-based technology is not suitable, for instance, when a semitransparent photovoltaic panel is needed. When the thin film solar cell performance is evaluated in terms of the device's visible transparency and power conversion efficiency, organic solar cells offer the most promising solution. During the last three years, research in the field has consolidated several approaches for the fabrication of high performance semi-transparent organic solar cells. We have grouped these approaches under three categories: devices where the absorber layer includes near-infrared absorption polymers, devices incorporating one-dimensional photonic crystals, and devices with a metal cavity light trapping configuration. We herein review these approaches.

show abstract

“…Incident light with resonant frequencies can be trapped inside the metal microcavity, satisfying the constructive interference condition, which realizes the effective light trapping in the sandwiched active layer [152][153][154]. Ultrathin metal films are usually chosen as the semitransparent front electrode with superior reflective transparent characteristics compared with the commonly used transparent ITO electrode, which ensures the formation of a stronger microcavity to enhance the optical confinement in OPVs.…”

Section: Metal-mirror Resonant Microcavitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Jen et al [152,161,162] have demonstrated ITO-free OPVs with the microcavity structure based on an ultrathin Ag electrode. The transmitted incident light through the ultrathin Ag electrode resonated within the optical microcavity, and photons with resonant frequencies were trapped owing to the coherent interference.…”

Section: Metal-mirror Resonant Microcavitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanostructures induced light harvesting enhancement in organic photovoltaics

Feng

et al. 2017

Nanophotonics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Lightweight and low-cost organic photovoltaics (OPVs) hold great promise as renewable energy sources. The most critical challenge in developing high-performance OPVs is the incomplete photon absorption due to the low diffusion length of the carrier in organic semiconductors. To date, various attempts have been carried out to improve light absorption in thin photoactive layer based on optical engineering strategies. Nanostructureinduced light harvesting in OPVs offers an attractive solution to realize high-performance OPVs, via the effects of antireflection, plasmonic scattering, surface plasmon polarization, localized surface plasmon resonance and optical cavity. In this review article, we summarize recent advances in nanostructure-induced light harvesting in OPVs and discuss various light-trapping strategies by incorporating nanostructures in OPVs and the fabrication processing of the micro-patterns with high resolution, large area, high yield and low cost.

show abstract

Strong Photocurrent Enhancements in Highly Efficient Flexible Organic Solar Cells by Adopting a Microcavity Configuration

Cited by 66 publications

References 49 publications

Ultrathin Organic Solar Cells with a Power Conversion Efficiency of Over ≈13.0%, Based on the Spatial Corrugation of the Metal Electrode–Cathode Fabry–Perot Cavity

Ultrathin Organic Solar Cells with a Power Conversion Efficiency of Over ≈13.0%, Based on the Spatial Corrugation of the Metal Electrode–Cathode Fabry–Perot Cavity

Semi-transparent polymer solar cells

Nanostructures induced light harvesting enhancement in organic photovoltaics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About