Plasmonic enhancement of aqueous processed organic photovoltaics

R Chowdhury; L Tegg; V J Keast; N P Holmes; N A Cooling; B Vaughan; N C Nicolaidis; W J Belcher; P C Dastoor; X Zhou

doi:10.1039/d1ra02328d

Plasmonic enhancement of aqueous processed organic photovoltaics

RSC Adv. 2021 May 25;11(31):19000-19011. doi: 10.1039/d1ra02328d. eCollection 2021 May 24.

Authors

R Chowdhury^{1

2}, L Tegg^{1

3}, V J Keast¹, N P Holmes³, N A Cooling², B Vaughan², N C Nicolaidis², W J Belcher², P C Dastoor^{1

2}, X Zhou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, The University of Newcastle Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia Xiaojing.zhou@newcastle.edu.au.
² Centre for Organic Electronics, Faculty of Science, The University of Newcastle Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia.
³ Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia.

Abstract

Sodium tungsten bronze (Na _x WO₃) is a promising alternative plasmonic material to nanoparticulate gold due to its strong plasmonic resonances in both the visible and near-infrared (NIR) regions. Additional benefits include its simple production either as a bulk or a nanoparticle material at a relatively low cost. In this work, plasmonic Na _x WO₃ nanoparticles were introduced and mixed into the nanoparticulate zinc oxide electron transport layer of a water processed poly(3-hexylthiophene):phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PC₆₁BM) nanoparticle (NP) based organic photovoltaic device (NP-OPV). The power conversion efficiency of NP-OPV devices with Na _x WO₃ NPs added was found to improve by around 35% compared to the control devices, attributed to improved light absorption, resulting in an enhanced short circuit current and fill factor.