Effect of silver nanospheres embedded in buffer layer based on organic solar cells

In this article, we demonstrate a plasmonic effect of silver nanospheres (Ag NSs) on improving the performance of organic polymer solar cells with a structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS-Ag NPs/poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT):[6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM)/Al. Ag NSs were prepared by a simple hydrothermal method and embedded between the hole transport layer and the active layer forming a mosaic structure. It can be found that the device embedded Ag NSs have the advantages for increasing the optical absorption of the active layer comparing with reference device. As a result, the power conversion efficiency of the optimal device reaches 2.71%, permitting a 33% improvement. Furthermore, the benefit in the OSCs owing to the introduction of Ag NSs plasmonic for the excitons generation and dissociation, for better balanced carrier collection, and improving the conductivity of buffer layer were also investigated.