Engineering the Charge Transport Properties of Resonant Silicon Nanoparticles in Perovskite Solar Cells

Resonant semiconductor nanoparticles (NPs) that improve both light trapping and scattering have recently emerged as an additional tool for enhancing the efficiency of perovskite solar cells. Among the various types of nanostructures, silicon NPs, which support Mie modes and have lower losses compared with metallic particles with plasmon resonances, exhibit the best improvement for standard methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI(3))-based solar cells. Herein, not only the optical problem of solar cell optimization with silicon nanoantennas is studied, but also the effects related to charge carrier transport in the presence of NPs are considered. In particular, it is theoretically shown that the silicon nanoantennas can be further optimized by p-doping. The experimental verification is conducted for MAPbI(3)-based solar cells by p-doped silicon NPs in a hole transport layer (Spiro-OMeTAD). The improved generation rate of charge carriers and hole transport through the doped silicon NPs leads to improved efficiency of the device.