Alemayehu G. E-mail: fekadu. Recently, plasmonic nanoparticles NPs have attracted considerable attention as good candidates for enhancing the power conversion efficiency PCE of organic solar cells OSCs owing to their localized surface plasmon resonance LSPR. An improved absorption in the active layer due to the LSPR of cAu NPs as well as efficient exciton dissociation and charge collection were found to be the reasons for the enhanced J SC while the increase in FF was mainly due to the suppressed traps and improved conductivity of the ZnO layer by the NPs.
Recently, we have reported a significant performance improvements in plasmonic devices by optimizing the concentration of Ag NPs in poly 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene :poly styrene sulfonate PEDOT:PSS hole transport layer used in OSCs with normal geometry.
Zinc oxide ZnO is a prominent ETL in inverted OSCs because of its simplicity in synthesis, transparency, solutions processability, compatibility with large-area fabrication techniques, good conductivity, etc. However, the dangling bonds in the oxide create traps that are responsible for recombination due to the surface defects limiting its applications in optoelectronics.
Small NPs can also be embedded in the ZnO layer to improve the surface morphology while endowing the active layer with improved absorption due to their LSPR excitation. Thus, the effect of embedding Au in ZnO on the performance of different wide band gap polymer and fullerene blends processed in the air needs to be further explored. Wide band gap conjugated polymers such as poly 3-hexylthiophene P3HT suffer from lower absorption due to their small absorption width. Plasmonic enhancement using NPs that have resonance that matches with the absorption of these wide band gap polymers can provide a facile route for the improvement of their absorption.
The PCE of the reference device 3. Moreover, using cAu NPs embedded Zno ELT, a more stable device could be fabricated, indicating a new direction for the fabrication of air-processable OSCs with plasmonic gold nanoparticles embedded for potential commercial application.
