Impact of hybrid plasmonic nanoparticles on the charge carrier mobility of P3HT:PCBM polymer solar cells

Abstract

Abstract The solution processable polymer solar cells have shown a great promise as a cost-effective photovoltaic technology. Here, the effect of carrier mobility changes has been comprehensively investigated on the performance of P3HT:PCBM polymer solar cells using electro-optical coupled simulation regimes, which may result from the embedding of SiO2@Ag@SiO2 plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) in the active layer. Firstly, the active layer thickness, stemmed from the low mobility of the charge carriers, is optimized. The device with 80 nm thick active layer provided maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.47%. Subsequently, the PCE has increased to 6.75% and 6.5%, respectively, along with the benefit of light scattering, near-fields and interparticle hotspots produced by embedded spherical and cubic nanoparticles. The PCE of the devices with incorporated plasmonic nanoparticles are remarkably enhanced up to 7.61% (for spherical NPs) and 7.35% (for cubic NPs) owing to the increase of the electron and hole mobilities to $${\upmu }_{e}=8\times {10}^{-7} \,{\text{m}}^{2}/\text{V}/\text{s}$$ μ e = 8 × 10 - 7 m 2 / V / s and $${\upmu }_{h}=4\times {10}^{-7} \,{\text{m}}^{2}/\text{V}/\text{s}$$ μ h = 4 × 10 - 7 m 2 / V / s , respectively (in the optimum case). Furthermore, SiO2@Ag@SiO2 NPs have been successfully synthesized by introducing and utilizing a simple and eco-friendly approach based on electroless pre-treatment deposition and Stober methods. Our findings represent a new facile approach in the fabrication of novel plasmonic NPs for efficient polymer solar cells.