Recent advances in plasmonic organic photovoltaics

Recent progress of light manipulation strategies in organic and perovskite solar cells

Organic and perovskite solar cells are suffering from the insufficient utilization of incident light and thus low light harvesting efficiency despite their rapid progress in the past decade. In this regard, light manipulation strategies have attracted numerous attention to solve this inherent limit. Herein, the recent advances in light manipulation techniques in this area are overviewed. The light manipulation mechanisms are illustrated to classify the structures. Various light manipulation structures, fabrication techniques, and corresponding results are given and discussed, addressing the suppression of surface reflection, nano/micro-structure-induced light scattering, and the plasmonic effects with periodic metallic patterns and metallic nanoparticles. A brief perspective on future research is also proposed for pursuing broadband light harvesting.

Light Manipulation in Organic Photovoltaics

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) hold great promise for next-generation photovoltaics in renewable energy because of the potential to realize low-cost mass production via large-area roll-to-roll printing technologies on flexible substrates. To achieve high-efficiency OPVs, one key issue is to overcome the insufficient photon absorption in organic photoactive layers, since their low carrier mobility limits the film thickness for minimized charge recombination loss. To solve the inherent trade-off between photon absorption and charge transport in OPVs, the optical manipulation of light with novel micro/nano-structures has become an increasingly popular strategy to boost the light harvesting efficiency. In this Review, we make an attempt to capture the recent advances in this area. A survey of light trapping schemes implemented to various functional components and interfaces in OPVs is given and discussed from the viewpoint of plasmonic and photonic resonances, addressing the external antireflection coatings, substrate geometry-induced trapping, the role of electrode design in optical enhancement, as well as optically modifying charge extraction and photoactive layers.

Solution-Processed 8-Hydroquinolatolithium as Effective Cathode Interlayer for High-Performance Polymer Solar Cells

Solution-processed 8-hydroxyquinolinatolithium (s-Liq) was successfully applied as an efficient cathode interlayer in bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSCs), giving rise to enhancement in device performance. The ultraviolet photoelectron spectra results revealed that the presence of s-Liq could lower work function of Al cathode, allowing for the ohmic contacts with the fullerene acceptor for better electron extraction and also a larger work function difference between the two electrodes, which leads to an increase in open-circuit voltage (V(oc)). Scanning Kelvin probe microscopy study on the surface potential of active layers suggested that an interfacial dipole was formed in the s-Liq interlayer between the active layer and the Al cathode, which enhanced the intrinsic built-in potential in the device for better charge transportation and extraction. Consequently, the V(oc), fill factor, and current density of the device can be improved by the introduction of s-Liq interlayer, leading to a power conversion efficiency (PCE) improvement. With PTB7 (or PTB7-Th) as the donor and PC71BM as the acceptor, the s-Liq-based PSC devices exhibited a PCE of 8.37% (or 9.04%), much higher than those of devices with the evaporated Liq (7.62%) or commonly used PFN (8.14%) as the cathode interlayer. Moreover, the s-Liq-based devices showed good stability, maintaining 75% (in N2) and 45% (in air) of the initial PCE after 7 days, respectively. These results suggest the great potential of s-Liq as cathode interlayer material for high-performance solar cells application.