Optically enhanced semi-transparent organic solar cells through hybrid metalanoparticle/dielectric nanostructure

摘要

Semi-transparent organic solar cells (st-OSCs) that hold high recovery of efficiency with sunlight illumination from both electrodes are of great interest in different applications. While the issues for improving the recovery of efficiency from top-illumination are very limited studied, we propose a hybrid optical nanostructure metalanoparticle/dielectric (M/NP/D) to achieve high recovery of efficiency. The M/NP/D nanostructure consists of high index and low-loss nanoparticles (NPs) (here we use Si NPs scatter instead of metal NPs) and index matching material (here we use Tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminum-Alq(3)) on ultra-thin Ag film, i.e. Ag/Si NPs/Alq(3) as the top hybrid electrode of st-OSCs. Our results show that the transmission of the electrode is improved complementarily in tong (due to Si NPs) as well as short wavelength regions (due to Alq(3) layer) with additional synergetic improvement (due to hybrid M/NP/D nanostructure). Subsequently, the enhanced average visible transmittance (AVT) up to 32% is achieved for the proposed st-OSCs. Simultaneously, compared to the optimized control st-OSC with the bare ultra-thin Ag electrode, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) for top-illumination case is improved by about 34%, with a recovery of efficiency up to 68%. Moreover, angular dependence of short circuit current (J(SC)) of st-OSCs with the hybrid electrode can be also alleviated. Consequently, the proposed transparent hybrid electrode can contribute to the emerging semi-transparent optoelectronics. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.