Improved Efficiency of Silicon Nanoholes/Gold Nanoparticles/Organic Hybrid Solar Cells via Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance.

Ronghua Lu,Linwei Yu,Jun Xu,Kunji Chen,Ling Xu,Zhaoyun Ge,Rui Li

doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1374-0

Ronghua Lu, Linwei Yu + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s11671-016-1374-0

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Journal: Nanoscale Research Letters	Publication Date: Mar 22, 2016
Citations: 16	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Nanjing University

Abstract

Silicon is the most widely used material for solar cells due to its abundance, non-toxicity, reliability, and mature fabrication process. In this paper, we fabricated silicon nanoholes (SiNHS)/gold nanoparticles (AuNPS)/organic hybrid solar cells and investigated their spectral and opto-electron conversion properties. SiNHS nanocomposite films were fabricated by metal-assisted electroless etching (EE) method. Then, we modified the surface of the nanocomposite films by exposing the samples in the air. After that, polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) blended with AuNPS were spin-coated on the surface of the SiNHS nanocomposite films as a hole-transporting layer. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) values of the solar cells with AuNPS are higher than that of the samples without AuNPS in the spectral region of 600–1000 nm, which were essential to achieve high performance photovoltaic cells. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the solar cells incorporating AuNPS exhibited an enhancement of 27 %, compared with that of the solar cells without AuNPS. We thought that the improved efficiency were attributed to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) triggered by gold nanoparticles in SiNHS nanocomposite films.

Highlights

A solar cell is a promising form of solar energy because of its permanence and cleanness
We fabricated silicon nanoholes (SiNHS)/gold nanoparticles (AuNPS)/PEDOT:PSS hybrid solar cells by electroless etching (EE) method to improve the performance via reducing interface carrier recombination and enhancing the light absorption at short wavelength based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effects
We can see that AuNPS are round, and the average diameter of the Methods Silver nanoparticles (AgNPS)/SiNHS nanocomposite films were fabricated by a modified EE method at room temperature

Summary

Introduction

A solar cell is a promising form of solar energy because of its permanence and cleanness. When the surface plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles occurs, the light absorption of the material increases, which is important for short wavelength spectral response of solar cells based on silicon [9, 11, 12]. We fabricated SiNHS/gold nanoparticles (AuNPS)/PEDOT:PSS hybrid solar cells by electroless etching (EE) method to improve the performance via reducing interface carrier recombination and enhancing the light absorption at short wavelength based on LSPR effects.

Results

Conclusion