Electrical and optical properties of hybrid polymer solar cells incorporating Au and CuO nanoparticles

Abstract

In this study, to enhance the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the polymer solar cells (PSCs), Gold (Au) and Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) are incorporated into the PEDOT:PSS and P3HT/PCBM active layers respectively. PSCs with a constant CuO-NP content were fabricated with varying amounts of Au NPs. Addition of Au NPs increased the power conversion efficiency by up to 18% compared to a reference cell without Au-NPs. The short circuit current(<em>J</em>_sc) of the cells containing 0.06 mg of Au NPs was measured at 7.491 mA/cm² compared to 6.484 mA/cm² in the reference cells with 0.6 mg of CuO nanoparticles; meanwhile, the external quantum efficiency(EQE) increased from 53% to 61%, showing an enhancement of 15.1%. Au-NPs improved the charge collection at the anode, which results in higher short circuit current and fill factor. However, the strong near field surrounding Au-NPs due to localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) effect is not distributed into the active layer. Instead, it is spread horizontally through the PEDOT:PSS layer, thus minimizing the light absorption in the active layer.