In the first part, I will describe a cooperative plasmonic effect on improving the performance of polymer bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells. When mixed Ag and Au nanoparticles are incorporated into the anode buffer layer, dual nanoparticles show superior behavior on enhancing light absorption in comparison with single nanoparticles, which led to the realization of a polymer solar cell with a power conversion efficiency of 8.67%, accounting for a 20% enhancement. The cooperative plasmonic effect aroused from dual resonance enhancement of two different NPs. The idea was further unraveled by comparing Au nanorods with Au nanoparticles for solar cell application. Detailed studies shed light into the influence of plasmonic nanostructures on exciton generation, dissociation and charge recombination and transport inside thin film devices.In the second part I will show an improved solar cell performance of 8.6% by incorporation of N-doped multi-wall carbon nanotubes (N-MCNTs) into BHJ solar cells composed of PTB7 and PC71BM. Incorporation of N-MCNTs leads to not only increased nanocrystallite sizes but also smaller phase separated domain sizes of both PTB7 copolymers and PC71BM from X-ray scattering study. N-MCNTs could also serve as extra exciton dissociation centers and charge transfer bridges. The facilitated charge separation and transport from N-MCNTs is further proved by determining the charge dissociation probabilities and effective charge carrier lifetime in the active layer material.

Improved polymer solar cell performance through new device designs

247th National Meeting (2014)

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