Plasmonic Organic Photovoltaic devices overcoming the critical barrier of 10% Power Conversion Efficiency:

Naoum Vaenas^a, George Kakavelakis^a, Emmanuel Kymakis^a, Miron Krassas^a, Emmanuel Stratakis^a^,^b

^aTechnological Educational Institute of Crete, Center of Materials Technology & Photonics, Estavromenos P.B 1939, Heraklion, Greece

^bInstitute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, GR-711 10, Crete, Greece

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics 2015 (HOPV15)

Roma, Italy, 2015 May 11th - 13th

Organizer: Filippo De Angelis

Oral, George Kakavelakis, presentation 204
Publication date: 5th February 2015

This presentation will review the recent progress of our group on nanoparticles (NPs)-based plasmonic organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices [1]. Plasmonic metallic NPs have recently been identified as a breakthrough route for efficiency enhancement of OPVs. In this work, highly stable uncapped Au and Al NPs, formed by ablation of metallic targets in liquids with pico- and femtosecond laser pulses and as well chemically synthesized NPs with surfactants are incorporated into the OPV device in different plasmonic architectures and studied with different bulk heterojunction systems (P3HT:PCBM, PCDTBT:PC₇₁BM and PBDTTT-EFT:PC₇₁BM). In particular, the incorporation of both Au and Al NPs into the photoactive layer of the PCDTBT:PC₇₁BM based device led to a 15% enhancement in PCE compared to the pristine device. The substitution of PCDTBT:PC₇₁BM photoactive blend with the high efficient PBDTTT-EFT:PC₇₁BM resulted a 12% enhancement in PCE compared to undoped device with a final PCE of 10.1% This synergetic enhancement can be attributed to localised surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effects at the small diameter Au NPs and to efficient scattering by the large diameter Al NPs and Au Nps clusters [2,3]. In addition, the doping of the TiO_x electron extraction layer with chemically synthesized Au Nanorods (NRs) leads to a further performance enhancement leading to a PCE of 6.9% for PCDTBT:PC₇₁BM based devices and 10.62% for PBDTTT-EFT:PC₇₁BM based devices. This significant enhancement originates from the back contact scattering induced by the high efficient scattering nature of Au NRs that enhanced the optical absorption inside the photoactive layer. Furthermore, the doping of PEDOT:PSS hole transport layer with Au or Al NPs combined with the above findings, exhibits a PCE enhancement of ~22%, leading to a maximum PCE of 10.98%. The experimental results were supported with theoretical modeling that demonstrated the optimum conditions for each plasmonic architecture. Acknowledgment: This research has been financially supported by the PeNElOPe (3116) project which is implemented under the ARISTEIA II Action of the Operational Programme Education and Life-long Learning and is co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and National Resources
Plasmonic OPV device structure showing the hierarchical placement of different NPs in the device
[1] Stratakis E., Kymakis E.(2013), Materials Today, 16, 133 [2] Kakavelakis G., Stratakis E., Kymakis E., (2013), RSC Advances, 3 (37), 16288-16291 [3] Kakavelakis G., Stratakis E., Kymakis E. (2014), Chem.Commun., 50 (40), 5285 – 5287

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