Optical enhancement effects of plasmonic nanostructures on organic photovoltaic cells

In this article, the optical enhancement effects of plasmonic nanostructures on OPV cells were reviewed as an effective way to resolve the mismatch problems between the short exciton diffusion length in organic semiconductors (around 10 nm) and the large thickness required to fully absorb sunlight (e.g. hundreds of nanometers). Especially, the performances of OPVs with plasmonic nanoparticles in photoactive and buffer layers and with periodic nanostructures were investigated. Furthermore, nanoimprint lithography-based nanofabrication processes that can easily control the dimension and uniformity of structures for large-area and uniform plasmonic nanostructures were demonstrated. (C) 2015 Hui Joon Park and L. Jay Gun. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.