Native-Metal-Oxide-Coated Plasmonic Electrode Metasurfaces for Nanophotonic Light Trapping and Efficient Charge Collection

Abstract

Metasurfaces are emerging nanostructured materials that enable controlled light manipulation on a 2-dimensional plane. The range of potential light control properties of metasurfaces lends them to the application of light management in thin-film optoelectronic devices. The challenge with implementing metasurfaces in thin-film photovoltaic devices is to make them multifunctional - so that they can efficiently act as both electrodes and as the light trapping element. In particular, plasmonic metasurfaces are limited to certain metal materials and, therefore, the surface electronic workfunction of the metasurface may not allow efficient charge collection from a semiconductor coating despite having excellent light trapping properties. This study focuses on the design and formation of ultra-thin, p-type native metal oxide coatings on plasmonic metasurfaces consisting of nanostructured silver, copper and nickel thin films. The light scattering and near-field light localization properties of the metasurface electrodes are characterized in thin-film photovoltaic device formats and their efficiencies for hole collection from organic semiconductor thin films are predicted.