Nanobump assembly for plasmonic organic solar cells

We demonstrate novel plasmonic organic solar cells (OSCs) by embedding an easy processible nanobump assembly (NBA) for harnessing more light. The NBA is consisted of precisely size-controlled Ag nanoparticles (NPs) generated by an aerosol process at atmospheric pressure and thermally deposited molybdenum oxide (MoO₃) layer which follows the underlying nano structure of NPs. The active layer, spin-casted polymer blend solution, has an undulated structure conformably covering the NBA structure. To find the optimal condition of the NBA structure for enhancing light harvest as well as carrier transfer, we systematically investigate the effect of the size of Ag NPs and the MoO₃ coverage on the device performance. It is observed that the photocurrent of device increases as the size of Ag NP increases owing to enhanced plasmonic and scattering effect. In addition, the increased light absorption is effectively transferred to the photocurrent with small carrier losses, when the Ag NPs are fully covered by the MoO₃ layer. As a result, the NBA structure consisted of 40 nm Ag NPs enclosed by 20 nm MoO₃ layer leads to18% improvement in the power conversion efficiency compared to the device without the NBA structure. Therefore, the NBA plasmonic structure provides a reliable and efficient light harvesting in a broad range of wavelength, which consequently enhances the performance of organic solar cells.