Surface plasma resonance enhanced photocurrent generation in NiO photoanode based solar cells

Abstract

Abstract Surface plasma resonance (SPR) effect has been demonstrated to improve solar cell performance. This work reports on the SPR effect from Au nanorod@SiO 2 on p-type dye-sensitized solar cells. Au nanorod@SiO 2 works as an antenna to transform photons with long wavelength into electric field followed by an enhanced excitation of dye. The devices using the NiO electrode containing Au nanorod@SiO 2 shows overall power conversion efficiencies of about 0.2% in combination with I − /I 3 − electrolyte, and 0.29% with T − /T 2 electrolyte, which are superior to those without adding Au nanorods. Detailed investigation including spectroscopy and transient photovoltage decay measurements reveals that plasma effect of Au nanorod@SiO 2 contribute to charge injection efficiency, and thus on the photocurrent. The effect of Au NRs can be further extended to the inverted planar perovskite solar cells, showing obviously improvement in photocurrent.