Enhanced carrier mobility and photon-harvesting property by introducing Au nano-particles in bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells

• PSCs doped with Au NPs are fabricated to maximize the photon harvesting properties on the buffer and photoactive layer.
• To enhance the carrier mobility, In addition, DMSO is added to hybrid buffer layer.
• The PSC performance is optimized with a 88% improvement over the conventional PSCs.
• As a result, the RS decreased from 42.3 to 19.7 Ω cm2 while the RSH increased from 339 to 487 Ω cm2.

In this study, polymer solar cells (PSCs) doped with Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) were successfully fabricated to maximize the photon-harvesting properties on the photoactive layer. In addition, a conductivity-enhanced hybrid buffer layer was introduced to improve the photon absorption properties and effectively separate the generated charges by adding Au NPs and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) to the PH 500 as a buffer layer. The PSC performance was optimized with a 88% improvement over the conventional PSCs (photoactive area: 225 mm2, power conversion efficiency (PCE): 3.2%) by the introduction to the buffer layer of Au NPs and DMSO at 10 wt% and 1.0 wt%, respectively, and with 15 wt% Au NP doping in the photoactive layer. The internal resistance was decreased due to the increased photocurrent caused by the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect of the Au NPs in the photoactive layer and by the improvement of carrier mobility induced by the DMSO doping of the buffer layer. As a result, the series resistance (RS) deceased from 42.3 to 19.7 Ω cm2 while the shunt resistance (RSH) increased from 339 to 487 Ω cm2.

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