Plasmonic-enhanced crystalline silicon/organic heterojunction cells by incorporating gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Poly-(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS)/c-Si heterojunction solar cells are studied with and without gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) incorporation into PEDOT:PSS layer. The results show that the devices with 10-15% AuNPs incorporation achieve an efficiency of 10.28%, an enhancement of about 10% compared with the reference cell without AuNPs incorporation, which exhibits a conversion efficiency of 9.29%. The local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) originated from incorporated AuNPs is thought to be one of the reasons why the short-circuit current density improves. Meanwhile, the C-V characteristic results suggest that an improvement in built-in potential leads to promote the carrier-collection efficiency, thereby resulting in improved photovoltaic performance. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.