MULTI-PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF PLASMONIC ORGANIC SOLAR CELLS (Invited Paper)

Abstract

(Invited Paper) Abstract|Organic solar cells (OSCs) have recently attracted considerable research interest. For typical OSCs, it is highly desirable to have optically thick and physically thin thickness for strong light absorption and e-cient carrier collection respectively. In the meantime, most organic semiconductors have short exciton difiusion length and low carrier mobility (1{3). As a consequence, the active layers of OSCs are generally thin with a thickness of a few hundred nanometers to ensure the e-cient extraction of carriers, hence limiting the total absorption of incident light. Optimizing both the optical and electrical (i.e., multi-physical) properties of OSCs is in demands for rationally designed device architectures. Plasmonic nanomaterials (e.g., metallic nanoparticles (4{6), nanorods (7,8), nanoprisms (9,10), etc.) have recently been introduced into difierent layers of multilayered solar cells to achieve highly e-cient light harvesting. The multilayered solar cells structures commonly have active layer, carrier (electron and hole) transport layer and electrode (anode and cathode). Through the localized plasmonic resonances (LPRs) (11{16) from metallic nanomaterials, very strong near-flelds will be generated, which can provide a large potential for enhancing optical absorption in the multilayered OSCs. Besides the optical efiects, it has been reported that metallic nanomaterials can modify the morphology, interface properties as well as the electrical properties of OSCs which will signiflcantly modify the performances of OSCs (17{23). In this article, the efiects of various optical resonance mechanisms and the theoretical studies of the multi- physical properties of OSCs will be reviewed. Meanwhile, the experimental optical and electrical efiects of metallic nanomaterials incorporated in difierent layers of OSCs will be studied. The morphology and interface efiects of metallic nanomaterials in the carrier transport layers on the performances of OSCs will also be described.