Enhancement of organic solar cell performance by incorporating gold quantum dots (AuQDs) on a plasmonic grating

Sopit Phetsang; Supeera Nootchanat; Chutiparn Lertvachirapaiboon; Ryousuke Ishikawa; Kazunari Shinbo; Keizo Kato; Pitchaya Mungkornasawakul; Kontad Ounnunkad; Akira Baba

doi:10.1039/d0na00169d

Enhancement of organic solar cell performance by incorporating gold quantum dots (AuQDs) on a plasmonic grating

Nanoscale Adv. 2020 Jun 8;2(7):2950-2957. doi: 10.1039/d0na00169d. eCollection 2020 Jul 14.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University 8050 Ikarashi-2-nocho, Nishi-ku Niigata 950-2181 Japan ababa@eng.niigata-u.ac.jp.
² Department of Chemistry and Center of Excellence for Innovation in Chemistry (PERCH-CIC), Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University Chiang Mai 50200 Thailand kontad.ounnunkad@cmu.ac.th.
³ Center of Excellence for Innovation in Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Center of Excellence in Materials Science and Technology, Research Center on Chemistry for Development of Health Promoting Products from Northern Resources, Chiang Mai University Chiang Mai 50200 Thailand.

Abstract

The incorporation of metallic nanoobjects into devices allows to increase light harvesting, which increases the device performance. In this study, we used a combination of gold quantum dots and grating-coupled surface plasmon resonance (GCSPR) to improve the performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) with a poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT):[6,6]-phenyl C₆₁ butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) photoactive layer. Gold quantum dots with a green fluorescent color (green-AuQD) were loaded into a hole transport layer (HTL) aiming to harvest photons in the UV region and emit visible light into the neighboring photoactive layer. Meanwhile, plasmonic grating structures, which were created on the photoactive layer surfaces via the nanoimprinting technique, provided an enhancement effect through light scattering and GCSPR. Thus, an excellent enhancement of OSC efficiency with a significant increase in short circuit photocurrent (J _SC) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) in comparison to that of the reference cell was achieved. The fabricated device provides a J _SC value as high as 8.41 mA cm^-2 (a 14.11% enhancement) and a PCE value of 3.91% (a 19.57% enhancement). The systematic study clearly reveals that the remarkable enhancement of OSC efficiency is achieved by incorporating both AuQD and plasmonic grating.