Optimizing one-dimensional photonic-crystals based semitransparent organic solar cells by tailoring reflection phase shift within photonic bandgap

Phase adjustment is employed to redistribute the optical electric field and improve the optical absorption for semitransparent organic solar cells with one-dimensional photonic-crystals. Simulations reveal that tailoring the reflection phase shift of the one-dimensional photonic-crystals can shift the active layer into the electrical maximum region where it is most beneficial for photon absorption. With appropriate adjustment of the reflection phase shift, the optical absorption within the blue and near-infrared wavelength ranges can be improved simultaneously and yield an improvement of 112.5% in the total absorbed photons for the devices. In addition, the average transmission remains 71.1% across the visible wavelength range of 470 nm-700 nm. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3631675]