Power conversion efficiency enhancement of organic solar cells by addition of gold nanostars,nanorods, and nanospheres

The effects of gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) with different morphologies (star, rod, sphere) incorporated into buffer layer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), of polymer-based organic solar cells (OSCs) were investigated. Solar cells having gold nanoparticles exhibited significant improvement in device efficiency relative to the reference device. The observed improvement is most likely due to the surface plasmon and enhanced light reflection and scattering properties of the Au NPs. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) is increased ca. 29% with Au nanostars, ca. 14% with Au nanorods and 11% with Au nanospheres compared to the device with no Au NP (reference device). Au nanostars provide the strongest contribution to the efficiency among all NP morphologies studied as they have large size, sharp features, and strongest localized surface plasmon resonance effect associate with their morphology.     

All thermal-evaporated surface plasmon enhanced organic solar cells by Au nanoparticles

Au nanoparticles (NPs) are fabricated on indium-tin-oxide substrates by a thermal evaporation method and incorporated to an efficient small molecule organic solar cell (OSC). This renders an all thermal evaporated surface plasmon enhanced OSC. The optimized device shows a power conversion efficiency of 3.40%, which is 14% higher than that of the reference device without Au NPs. The improvement is mainly contributed to the increased short-circuit current which resulted from the enhanced light harvesting due to localized surface plasmon resonance of Au NPs and the increased conductivity of the device.     

Realizing both improved luminance and stability in organic light-emitting devices based on a solution-processed inter-layer composed of MoOX and Au nanoparticles mixture

We report on the solution-processed mixture of Au nanoparticles (NPs) and MoO_X as an inter-layer in organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs), leading to the enhanced light emission and good stability. An impressive enhancement in current efficiency and power efficiency is achieved up to 70% and 100%, respectively. A systematic study to the effect of the Au NPs:MoO_X inter-layer on OLEDs demonstrates that the improved electrical properties is mainly ascribed to the enhanced hole injection due to the high work function of MoO_X and the good conductivity of Au NPs, and the enhanced optical properties is mainly attributed to the localized surface plasmon induced by Au NPs, which makes a great contribution to the improved efficiency. Besides, Au NPs:MoO_X inter-layer also behaves superior to the frequently-used polyethylene dioxythiophene:polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) in device stability. The decay ratio for Au NPs:MoO_X based device is 60% after 80 h, while it is nearly dying out for the device with PEDOT:PSS inter-layer.     

Large AuAg Alloy Nanoparticles Synthesized in Organic Media Using a One‐Pot Reaction: Their Applications for High‐Performance Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

A one‐pot synthesis of large size and high quality AuAg alloy nanoparticles (NPs) with well controlled compositions via hot organic media is demonstrated. Amid the synthesis, complexation between trioctylphosphine (TOP) and metal precursors is found, which slows down the rate of nucleation and leads to the growth of large‐size AuAg nanoalloys. The wavelength and relative intensities of the resulting plasmon bands are readily fine‐tuned during the synthetic process using different Au/Ag precursors molar ratios. In the polymer solar cells, a key step in achieving high efficiency is the utilization of 1% Au₁₁Ag₈₉ alloy NPs embedded in the active layer to promote the power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 4.73%, which outperforms the reference device based on the control standard device of poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl‐C₆₁‐butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₁BM) under identical conditions. Corresponding increases in short‐circuit current density (J_sc), open‐circuit voltage (V_oc), fill factor (FF), and incident photon‐to‐current efficiency (IPCE) enable 31% PCE improvement due to the enhancement of the light‐trapping and the improvement of charge transport in the active layer. The findings advance the fundamental understanding and point to the superiority of Au₁₁Ag₈₉ nanoalloys as a promising metallic additive over Au, Ag, and Au₂₈Ag₇₂ alloy NPs to boost the solar cell performance.     

Oxide Sandwiched Metal Thin‐Film Electrodes for Long‐Term Stable Organic Solar Cells

Oxide/silver/oxide multilayers as semitransparent top electrode for small molecule organic solar cells (OSCs) are presented. It is shown that two oxide layers sandwiching a central metal layer greatly improve the stability and lifetime of the organic solar cell. Thermally evaporated MoO₃, WO₃, or V₂O₅ layers are employed as an interlayer for subsequent silver deposition and significantly change the morphology of the ultrathin silver layer, improving charge extraction and electrodes series resistance. The transmittance of the electrode is increased by introducing oxide or oxide and organic multilayers as capping layer, which leads to higher photocurrent generation in the absorber layer. Application of 1 nm MoO₃/11 nm Ag/10 nm MoO₃/50 nm Alq₃ multilayer electrodes in OSCs lead to an efficiency of 2.6% for a standard ZnPc:C60 cell, showing superior performance compared to devices with pure silver top contacts. The device lifetime is also strongly increased. MoO₃ layers can saturate and stabilize the inner and outer metal surface, passivating it against most of the degradation mechanisms. With such an oxide/silver/oxide multilayer electrode, the time until the glass encapsulated OSC is degraded to 80% of its starting efficiency is enhanced from 86 h to approximately 4500 h compared to an OSC without an oxide interlayer.     

Enhanced organic light emitting diode and solar cell performances using silver nano-clusters

Silver nano-clusters (NCs) were incorporated into organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and solar cells by means of thermal evaporation. Silver NCs enhance the efficiency of both OLEDs and polymer solar cells under tailored device architecture. In tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq₃) based small molecule OLEDs, silver NCs were deposited under the Al cathode. The electron injection from the cathode to organic layer is promoted significantly owing to silver NCs induced lightning rod effect, the Alq₃ OLEDs luminous efficiency is increased up to a factor of 6. In poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) polymer solar cells, the active layer absorption is enhanced in the presence of silver NCs, which can be ascribed to NCs induced light scattering effect as well as to plasmon enhanced local electric field effect. As a result, photocurrent of the solar cells is increased and the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is improved up to 20%. The comparative study of surface plasmon effects in different organic optoelectronic devices reveals interesting features of the surface plasmon and allows optimization of optoelectronic devices from a novel point of view.     

Enhanced carrier mobility and photon-harvesting property by introducing Au nano-particles in bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells

In this study, polymer solar cells (PSCs) doped with Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) were successfully fabricated to maximize the photon-harvesting properties on the photoactive layer. In addition, a conductivity-enhanced hybrid buffer layer was introduced to improve the photon absorption properties and effectively separate the generated charges by adding Au NPs and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) to the PH 500 as a buffer layer. The PSC performance was optimized with a 88% improvement over the conventional PSCs (photoactive area: 225 mm², power conversion efficiency (PCE): 3.2%) by the introduction to the buffer layer of Au NPs and DMSO at 10 wt% and 1.0 wt%, respectively, and with 15 wt% Au NP doping in the photoactive layer. The internal resistance was decreased due to the increased photocurrent caused by the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect of the Au NPs in the photoactive layer and by the improvement of carrier mobility induced by the DMSO doping of the buffer layer. As a result, the series resistance (R_S) deceased from 42.3 to 19.7 Ω cm² while the shunt resistance (R_SH) increased from 339 to 487 Ω cm².     

Using metal/organic junction engineering to prepare an efficient organic base-modulation triode and its inverter

In this study, we investigated the influence of a buffer layer of molybdic oxide (MoO₃) at the metal/organic junction on the behavior of organic base-modulation triodes. The performance of devices featuring MoO₃/Al as the emitter electrode was enhanced relative to that of corresponding devices with Au and Ag, presumably because of the reduced in the contact barrier and the prevention of metal diffusion into the organic layer. The device exhibited an output current of ?16.1 μA at V_B = ?5 V and a current ON/OFF ratio of 10³. Using this architecture, we constructed resistance–load inverters that exhibited a calculated gain of 6.     

The dual localized surface plasmonic effects of gold nanodots and gold nanoparticles enhance the performance of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells

In this study, we investigated the effects of plasmonic resonances induced by gold nanodots (Au NDs), thermally deposited on the active layer, and octahedral gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), incorporated within the hole transport layer, on the performance of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on poly(3-hexyl thiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C₆₁butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₁BM). Thermal deposition of 5.3-nm Au NDs between the active layer and the cathode in a P3HT:PC₆₁BM device resulted in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.6%—that is 15% greater than that (4.0%) for the P3HT:PC₆₁BM device without Au NDs. The Au NDs provided near-field enhancement through excitation of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), thereby enhancing the degree of light absorption.     

Reusing of transmitted light by localized surface plasmon enhancing of Ag nanoparticles in organic solar cells

Silver nanoparticles(Ag NPs)are synthesized with chemical method,which are introduced into the traditional organic photovoltaic(OPV)structure.The experimental results show that both the optical and photoelectric properties are en-hanced because of localized surface plasmon(LSP)effects of Ag NPs.The advantage of adding Ag NPs behind active layer in incident direction is discussed.We believe this route can avoid absorption shadow and enhance the reusing of transmitted light of active layer.The average short-circuit current(J SC)of the optimum device can be raised from 9.23mA/cm2 to 10.84mA/cm2,and the energy converting efficiency(PCE)can be raised from 3.22% to 3.85%.     

Functionalization of Graphene Oxide Films with Au and MoOx Nanoparticles as Efficient p‐Contact Electrodes for Inverted Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

A graphene oxide (GO) film is functionalized with metal (Au) and metal‐oxide (MoO_x) nanoparticles (NPs) as a hole‐extraction layer for high‐performance inverted planar‐heterojunction perovskite solar cells (PSCs). These NPs can increase the work function of GO, which is confirmed with X‐ray photoelectron spectra, Kelvin probe force microscopy, and ultraviolet photoelectron spectra measurements. The down‐shifts of work functions lead to a decreased level of potential energy and hence increased V_oc of the PSC devices. Although the GO‐AuNP film shows rapid hole extraction and increased V_oc, a J_sc improvement is not observed because of localization of the extracted holes inside the AuNP that leads to rapid charge recombination, which is confirmed with transient photoelectric measurements. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the GO‐AuNP device attains 14.6%, which is comparable with that of the GO‐based device (14.4%). In contrast, the rapid hole extraction from perovskite to the GO‐MoO_x layer does not cause trapping of holes and delocalization of holes in the GO film accelerates rapid charge transfer to the indium tin oxide substrate; charge recombination in the perovskite/GO‐MoO_x interface is hence significantly retarded. The GO‐MoO_x device consequently shows significantly enhanced V_oc and J_sc, for which its device performance attains PCE of 16.7% with great reproducibility and enduring stability.     

基于MoO3和Re-Bphen修饰有机太阳能电池性能的研究

有机太阳能电池(OSCs)的性能与材料及器件结构密切相关。以MoO3为阳极缓冲层,有机金属配合物Re-Bphen为阴极缓冲层,制备了结构为ITO/MoO3/CuPc/C60/Re-Bphen/Al的OSCs。在标准太阳光照条件下,当MoO3和Re-Bphen的厚分别为5nm和8nm时实现了器件的最佳性能,能量转换效率(PCE)和器件寿命均显著提高。结合器件结构,分析了工作机制。     

MoO3–Au composite interfacial layer for high efficiency and air-stable organic solar cells

Efficient and stable polymer bulk-heterojunction solar cells based on regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PC₆₁BM) blend active layer have been fabricated with a MoO₃–Au co-evaporation composite film as the anode interfacial layer (AIL). The optical and electrical properties of the composite MoO₃–Au film can be tuned by altering the concentration of Au. A composite film with 30% (weight ratio) Au was used as the AIL and showed a better performance than both pure MoO₃ and PEDOT:PSS as AIL. The surface morphology of the MoO₃–Au composite film was investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and showed that the originally rough ITO substrate became smooth after depositing the composite film, with the root mean square roughness (RMS) decreased from 4.08 nm to 1.81 nm. The smooth surface reduced the bias-dependent carrier recombination, resulting in a large shunt resistance and thus improving the fill factor and efficiency of the devices. Additionally, the air stability of devices with different AILs (MoO₃–Au composite, MoO₃ and PEDOT:PSS) were studied and it was found that the MoO₃–Au composite layer remarkably improved the stability of the solar cells with shelf life-time enhanced by more than 3 and 40 times compared with pure MoO₃ layer and PEDOT:PSS layer, respectively. We argue that the stability improvement might be related with the defect states in MoO₃ component.     

Solution-processed annealing-free ZnO nanoparticles for stable inverted organic solar cells

We report the development and application of high-quality zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) processed in air for stable inverted bulk heterojunction solar cells as an electron extraction layer (EEL). The ZnO NPs (average size ∼11 nm) were dispersed in chloroform and stabilized by propylamine (PA). We demonstrated that the ZnO NP dispersion with 4 vol.% of PA as stabilizer can be used in air directly and remains clear up to one month after preparation. Our inverted solar cells consisted of a blade-coated poly(N-9′-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4′,7′-di-2-thienyl-2′,1′,3′-benzothiadiazole (PCDTBT) and [6,6]-phenyl C₇₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₁BM) (1: 4 by weight) active layer sandwiched between a ZnO electron extraction layer and a MoO₃/Ag anode. All solar cells with ZnO films fabricated in air using PA-stabilized ZnO dispersions prepared within a time window of one month exhibited power conversion efficiencies (PCE) above 4%. In contrast, if the ZnO film was prepared in air using regular un-stabilized ZnO NP dispersion, the PCE would drop to 0.2% due to poor film quality. More interestingly, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements indicated that the PA ligands were not covalently bonded to ZnO NPs and did not exist in the deposited ZnO films. The spin-cast ZnO thin films (without any thermal treatment) are insoluble in organic solvents and can be directly used as an EEL in solar cells. This feature is beneficial for fabricating organic solar cells on flexible polymer substrates. More importantly, our non-encapsulated inverted solar cells are highly stable with their PCEs remaining unchanged after being stored in air for 50 days.     

In-situ synthesis of metal nanoparticle-polymer composites and their application as efficient interfacial materials for both polymer and planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells

A new approach for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) via a simple and fast in-situ generation method using an amine-containing polymer (PN4N) as both stabilizer and reducing agent is reported. The application of the Au NPs-PN4N hybrid material as efficient interfacial layer in different types of solar cells was also explored. The synthesized Au NPs show good uniformity in size and shape and the Au NPs doped PN4N hybrid composites exhibit high stability. Amine-containing polymers are good cathode interfacial materials (CIMs) in polymer solar cells (PSCs) and planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells (PVKSCs). The performance of the PSCs with Au NPs doped PN4N CIMs is largely improved when compares to devices with pristine PN4N CIM due to the enhanced electronic properties of the doped PN4N. Furthermore, by incorporating larger Au NPs into PEDOT:PSS to enhance absorption of the light harvesting layer, power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 6.82% and 13.7% are achieved for PSC with PCDTBT/PC₇₁BM as the light harvesting materials and PVKSC with a ∼280 nm-thick CH₃NH₃PbI_3−xCl_x perovskite layer, respectively. These results indicate that Au NPs doped into both PEDOT:PSS and PN4N interlayers exhibited a synergistic effect in performance improvement of PSCs and PVKSCs.     

Effect of incorporation of CdS NPs on performance of PTB7: PCBM organic solar cells

It has been well known that incorporation of nano-heterostructures of various metals, semiconductors and dielectric materials in the active layer of organic solar cells (OSCs) helps in improving power conversion efficiency (PCE). In the present study, we demonstrated microwave synthesis of CdS nanoparticles (NPs) for their application in one of most efficient OSCs consisting of poly[[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl] [3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl] thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl]] (PTB7): [6,6]-phenyl C₇₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) photoactive blend. This is crucial to fully explore the promising features of low cost and scalability in organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells. Synthesized CdS NPs are slightly elongated and highly crystalline with their absorption lies in the visible region as confirmed by High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy studies. Our experimental results for the devices in an inverted geometry having a structure ITO/ZnO/PTB7: CdS: PCBM/MoO₃/Ag has shown increase in Jsc and PCE by nearly 10%. However, it was observed that this increase is only when NPs were added in the low concentration in active layer. UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy, Photoluminescence (PL) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies were carried out in order understand the device performance.     

Incorporation of silver and gold nanostructures for performance improvement in P3HT: PCBM inverted solar cell with rGO/ZnO nanocomposite as an electron transport layer

Inefficient light absorption and inefficient charge separation are considered as two major impediments for the efficiency improvement in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (BHJ OSCs). In this work, we report the simultaneous role of modified electron transport layer (ETL) and photoactive layers on the performance of poly (3-hexylthiophene), [6, 6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT: PCBM) BHJ OSCs. To modify the ETL, composite of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) (0.4 wt %) and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) was used, which resulted in efficiency enhancement from 3.13 to 3.81%, as compared to a value of 3.13% when only ZnO was used. Thereafter, to improve upon the optical absorption properties, the photoactive layer is modified by embedding nanoparticles and nanorods of Ag and Au into it. The size of Ag and Au nanoparticles were chosen to be 50 nm while the dimensions of Ag and Au nanorods were so controlled to obtain length of approx. 50 nm and width of ∼10 nm. All the devices were fabricated in inverted geometry and 20 wt% nanostructures embedded devices showed the best results. For Ag and Au NPs embedded devices, the maximum power conversion efficiency was found to be 4.21% and 4.44%, respectively. On the other hand, for Ag and Au NRs embedded devices, the maximum efficiency was 4.37% and 4.85%, respectively. For comparison, the control devices where no nanostructures were embedded, which shows efficiency of 3.81%. Therefore, an overall enhancement in efficiency was nearly 1.21 and 1.1, 1.16, 1.14, 1.27 fold after modifying ETL as well as the active layer. The reasons for performance improvement were ascribed to better charge extraction properties of ETL, enhanced light absorption due to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and efficient light scattering by the nanostructures and improved global mobilities.     

Large Upconversion Enhancement in the “Islands” Au–Ag Alloy/NaYF4: Yb3+, Tm3+/Er3+ Composite Films,and Fingerprint Identification

The surface plasmon (SP) modulation is a promised way to highly improve the strength of upconversion luminescence (UCL) and expand its applications. In this work, the “islands” Au–Ag alloy film is prepared by an organic removal template method and explored to improve the UCL of NaYF₄: Yb3+, Tm³⁺/Er³⁺. After the optimization of Au–Ag molar ratio (Au_1.25–Ag_0.625) and the size of NaYF₄ nanoparticles (NPs, ≈7 nm), an optimum enhancement as high as 180 folds is obtained (by reflection measurement) for the overall UCL intensity of Tm³⁺. Systematic studies indicate that the UCL enhancement factor (EF) increases with the increased size of metal NPs and the increase of diffuse reflection, with the decreased size of NaYF₄ NPs, with the decreased power density of excitation light and with improving order of multiphoton populating. The total decay rate varies only ranging of about 20% while EF changes significantly. All the facts above indicate that the UCL enhancement mainly originates from coupling of SP with the excitation electromagnetic field. Furthermore, the fingerprint identification based on SP‐enhanced UCL is realized in the metal/UC system, which provides a novel insight for the application of the metal/UC device.     

Ultrathin CdTe Solar Cells with MoO3−x /Au Back Contacts

We report on the fabrication and characterization of CdTe thin-film solar cells with Cu-free MoO_3?x /Au back contacts. CdTe solar cells with sputtered CdTe absorbers of thicknesses from 0.5 to 1.75 μm were fabricated on Pilkington SnO₂:F/SnO₂-coated soda–lime glasses coated with a 60- to 80-nm sputtered CdS layer. The MoO_3?x /Au back contact layers were deposited by thermal evaporation. The incorporation of MoO_3?x layer was found to improve the open circuit voltage (V _OC) but reduce the fill factor of the ultrathin CdTe cells. The V _OC was found to increase as the CdTe thickness increased.     

Plasmonic Electrically Functionalized TiO2 for High‐Performance Organic Solar Cells

Optical effects of the plasmonic structures and the materials effects of the metal nanomaterials have recently been individually studied for enhancing performance of organic solar cells (OSCs). Here, the effects of plasmonically induced carrier generation and enhanced carrier extraction of the carrier transport layer (i.e., plasmonic‐electrical effects) in OSCs are investigated. Enhanced charge extraction in TiO₂ as a highly efficient electron transport layer by the incorporation of metal nanoparticles (NPs) is proposed and demonstrated. Efficient device performance is demonstrated by using Au NPs incorporated TiO₂ at a plasmonic wavelength (560–600 nm), which is far longer than the originally necessary UV light. By optimizing the concentration ratio of the Au NPs in the NP‐TiO₂ composite, the performances of OSCs with various polymer active layers are enhanced and efficiency of 8.74% is reached. An integrated optical and electrical model, which takes into account plasmonic‐induced hot carrier tunneling probability and extraction barrier between TiO₂ and the active layer, is introduced. The enhanced charge extraction under plasmonic illumination is attributed to the strong charge injection of plasmonically excited electrons from NPs into TiO₂. The mechanism favors trap filling in TiO₂, which can lower the effective energy barrier and facilitate carrier transport in OSCs.