A review on plasmonic nanostructures for efficiency enhancement of organic solar cells

The superior characteristics of organic solar cells (OSCs), such as flexibility, semitransparency, solutionprocessibility, and large-scale fabrication, etc. Make them as one of the most promising photovoltaic technologies in converting the solar energy into electricity. Although the performance of the OSCs improved rapidly in recent years with the development of the nonfullerene systems, the efficiency of the devices still falls behind the inorganic photovoltaics, resulting from the inherent drawbacks of the organic materials used in the devices. To enhance the light absorption, facilitate charge transfer, and inhabit exciton recombination of the OSCs, lots of successful strategies have been put forwarded. In this review, researchers have demonstrated that many types of plasmonic nanostructures were adapted in the charge transporting layer or active layer of the OSCs with excellent photoelectrical properties, which are suitable for the efficiency improvement of the devices. The working mechanism of the plasmonic enhancement of the OSCs are also discussed. Finally, the challenges and prospects for the further development of plasmonic nanoparticle-based OSCs are presented in the end.

Automated summary

Organic solar cells have superior characteristics, but still lag behind inorganic photovoltaics in efficiency. Researchers have successfully improved the photoelectrical properties of OSCs by using various plasmonic nanostructures, which are suitable for enhancing device efficiency.