Insight into the efficiency enhancement of polymer solar cells by incorporating gold nanoparticles

Photovoltaic performances of polymer bulk-heterojunction solar cells (PSCs) with various sized (20, 35, 50, and 75nm) Au nanoparticles (NPs) incorporated on indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates are investigated in detail, wherein poly(3-hexylthiophene):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) blend serves as active layer and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) as anode buffer layer on ITO. The optical and electrical properties of these devices incorporated with Au NPs with different space distributions in the interface of PEDOT:PSS buffer layer and P3HT:PCBM active layer are investigated. We find that, the optical property is improved as the Au NPs are large enough to penetrate into the active layer, while the performance of PSCs with small Au NPs can only benefit from the improved hole collection efficiency. Meanwhile, the exciton dissociation efficiency reduces remarkably as increasing the size of Au NPs. Finally, we demonstrated a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) improvement of ∼23% in the PSCs by incorporating 35nm Au NPs. ► Various sized Au NPs were spin-coated between ITO/anodic buffer layer. ► We explored optical and electrical properties of PSCs with various sized Au NPs. ► The mechanism of PCE enhancement of PSCs with Au NPs was revealed. ► A maximum PCE improvement of ∼23% was achieved.