Du Zhonglin, Yu Ting, He Wanting, Yurtsever Aycan, Izquierdo Ricardo, Jafari Maziar, Siaj Mohamed, Ma Dongling
Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Centre Énergie Materiaux et Télécommunications, 1650 Boulevard Lionel-Boulet, Varennes, Québec J3X 1P7, Canada.
College of Materials Science and Engineering, the National Base of International Science and Technology Cooperation on Hybrid Materials, Qingdao University, 308 Ningxia Road, Qingdao 266071, P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Apr 13;14(14):16185-16196. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c25223. Epub 2022 Mar 30.
Sufficient sunlight absorption and exciton generation are critical for developing efficient nonfullerene organic solar cells (OSCs). In this work, polyelectrolyte polystyrenesulfonate (PSS)-coated plasmonic gold nanorods (GNRs@PSS) were incorporated, for the first time, into the inverted nonfullerene OSCs as rear interfacial modifiers to improve sunlight absorption and charge generation via the near-field plasmonic and backscattering effects. The plasmonic GNRs effectively improved the sunlight absorption and enhanced the charge generation. Meanwhile, the negatively charged PSS shell ensured the uniform dispersion of the GNRs on the surface of the photoactive layer, optimized the interfacial contact, and further promoted the hole transport to the electrode. These concerted synergistic effects augmented the efficiency (10.11%) by nearly 20% relative to the control device (8.47%). Remarkably, the ultrathin (∼2.2 nm) organic layer on the surface of GNRs was closely examined by acquiring the carbon contrast image through energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (EF-TEM), which clearly confirmed the coating uniformity from the side to end-cap of GNRs. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of the GNRs@PSS on the surface of the photoactive layer was unprecedentedly mapped by photoinduced force microscopy (PiFM) under the illumination of a tunable wavelength supercontinuum laser mimicking sunlight. Furthermore, investigations into the effect of size, surface coverage, and incorporation location of GNRs@PSS on the performance of OSCs revealed that the appropriate design and incorporation of the plasmonic nanostructures are crucial, otherwise the performance can be decreased, as evidenced in the case of front interface integration.
对于开发高效的非富勒烯有机太阳能电池（OSC）而言，充分的阳光吸收和激子产生至关重要。在这项工作中，首次将聚电解质聚苯乙烯磺酸盐（PSS）包覆的等离子体金纳米棒（GNRs@PSS）作为后界面改性剂引入到倒置非富勒烯OSC中，以通过近场等离子体和背散射效应改善阳光吸收和电荷产生。等离子体GNRs有效地提高了阳光吸收并增强了电荷产生。同时，带负电荷的PSS壳确保了GNRs在光活性层表面的均匀分散，优化了界面接触，并进一步促进了空穴向电极的传输。这些协同效应使效率（10.11%）相对于对照器件（8.47%）提高了近20%。值得注意的是，通过能量过滤透射电子显微镜（EF-TEM）获取碳对比度图像，对GNRs表面的超薄（约2.2 nm）有机层进行了仔细检查，这清楚地证实了从GNRs的侧面到端帽的包覆均匀性。在模拟阳光的可调谐波长超连续激光照射下，通过光诱导力显微镜（PiFM）前所未有地绘制了光活性层表面GNRs@PSS的表面等离子体共振（SPR）效应。此外，对GNRs@PSS的尺寸、表面覆盖率和掺入位置对OSC性能的影响的研究表明，等离子体纳米结构的适当设计和掺入至关重要，否则性能可能会下降，如前界面集成的情况所示。
