Effect of doping the PM6:Y7 active layer with MoS2 nanospheres in organic solar cells

Abstract

Herein, MoS2 nanostructures were synthetized and characterized, as well as PM6:Y7 based organic solar cells (OSCs) were fabricated, tested, and modelled through SCAPS-1D software. Devices were assembled and tested under regular atmosphere conditions including the top electrode Field's Metal (FM), which is a eutectic alloy of Bi, In and Sn easily deposited by melting it at ∼ 95 °C. The modelled binary OSCs through SCAPS-1D achieved a PCE of 14.2%. The active layer was doped with MoS2 nanoparticles at two different concentrations, 1 and 2% v/v, the reached experimental average PCE values were 9.1%, 10.2% and 9.3% for control devices, and for the two doping concentrations, respectively; it means a PCE percentage enhancement of 11.2% when doping at 1% of MoS2. The enhanced experimental PCE value could be partially explained because of the light absorption into the active layer through the localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) phenomenon induced by the nanostructures, among other optical phenomena such as light reflection and interference effects.