Alkhalayfeh Muheeb Ahmad, Aziz Azlan Abdul, Pakhuruddin Mohd Zamir, Katubi Khadijah Mohammedsaleh M
School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden 11800, Penang, Malaysia.
Institute of Nano Optoelectronics Research and Technology (INOR), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Gelugor 11800, Penang, Malaysia.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Aug 9;15(16):5472. doi: 10.3390/ma15165472.
Embedding nanoparticles (NPs) in the buffer layer of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (BHJ PSCs) excites the surface plasmonic polaritons and enhances the pathlength of the light in the solar cells. On the other hand, embedding NPs in the active layer significantly improves absorption and increases the production of electron-hole (e-h) pairs in BHJ PSCs. Increasing the volume ratio of NPs embedded in BHJ PSCs enables the direct interfacing of the NPs with the active layer, which then serves as a charge recombination center. Therefore, this study integrates the aforementioned phenomena by exploiting the effects of embedding plasmonic Au@Ag NPs in the buffer and active layers of PSC and then determining the optimum volume ratio of Au@Ag NPs. The results show the absorption is increased across the 350-750 nm wavelength region, and the PCE of the device with embedded Au@Ag in two locations is enhanced from 2.50 to 4.24%, which implies a 69.6% improvement in the PCE in comparison to the reference cell. This improvement is contributed by the combined localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effects of multi-positional Au@Ag NPs, spiky durian-shaped morphology of Au@Ag NPs, and optimized volume ratio of Au@Ag NPs embedded in the PEDOT: PSS and PTB7:PCBM layers.
将纳米颗粒（NPs）嵌入体异质结聚合物太阳能电池（BHJ PSCs）的缓冲层中会激发表面等离子体激元，并增加光在太阳能电池中的传播路径长度。另一方面，将NPs嵌入活性层可显著提高吸收，并增加BHJ PSCs中电子 - 空穴（e - h）对的产生。增加嵌入BHJ PSCs中的NPs的体积比可使NPs与活性层直接接触，而活性层随后充当电荷复合中心。因此，本研究通过利用将等离子体Au@Ag NPs嵌入PSC的缓冲层和活性层的效果，然后确定Au@Ag NPs的最佳体积比，整合了上述现象。结果表明，在350 - 750 nm波长范围内吸收增加，并且在两个位置嵌入Au@Ag的器件的功率转换效率（PCE）从2.50%提高到4.24%，这意味着与参考电池相比，PCE提高了69.6%。这种提高是由多位置Au@Ag NPs的组合局部表面等离子体共振（LSPR）效应、Au@Ag NPs的尖刺榴莲形状形态以及嵌入PEDOT:PSS和PTB7:PCBM层中的Au@Ag NPs的优化体积比共同促成的。
