High efficiency polymer solar cells with wet deposited plasmonic gold nanodots

We report the enhanced performance of poly(3-hexylthiophene)/[6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT/PCBM) bulk heterojunction solar cells with wet deposited interfacial gold nanostructures on their indium tin oxide (ITO) surfaces. To produce localized surface plasmons at the ITO surfaces, gold nanostructures were fabricated through the layer-by-layer deposition of gold nanorods onto the ITO substrates and transformed into nanodots through a thermally induced shape transition. The incorporation of plasmonic gold nanodots on the ITO surface was found to result in an increase in the power conversion efficiency from 3.04% to 3.65%, which is due to the presence of the resulting plasmon field.