Photocurrent enhancement estimation of P3HT:PCBM:Au films as a function of gold nanoparticles concentration
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Photocurrent enhancement estimation of P3HT:PCBM:Au films as a function of gold nanoparticles concentration D. Canto-Reyes 1 & R. A. Soberanis-Ortiz 1 & I. Riech 1 & J. A. Mendez-Gamboa 1 & M. Acosta 1 Received: 10 June 2020 / Accepted: 6 October 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract This report provides a method to estimate how much the photocurrents can be increased by adding gold nanoparticles in P3HT:PCBM films, without having to carry out the complex process of fabricate a whole cell. The tuning effect of varying the gold nanoparticle concentration on optical properties of these films was analyzed by measuring optical absorption. To estimate the contribution of the optical absorption variation, theoretical photocurrents generated for these films as active layers were calculated using a photonic flux density equation. With this methodology, it is possible to estimate the amount of energy that can be harvest with a given gold nanoparticle concentration. Improvements up to 26% were obtained compared with films without added gold nanoparticles. Keywords Gold nanoparticles . P3HT:PCBM . Photocurrent . Photonic flux density . Optical absorption
Introduction Organic solar cells have been object of intensive research in the last decades due to its potential to be produced at lower cost than their inorganic counterpart. It was not until recent years, however, that they reached high enough efficiencies to be consider a feasible alternative to the widespread siliconbased technologies. There are many organic materials and configurations that can be used to fabricate organic solar cells, yet the optoelectronic properties are strongly influenced by the preparation conditions and growing techniques. There is no doubt that organic photovoltaics (OPV) have drawbacks, some of them major ones. Their low efficiency rates and their short lifespans are probably among the most challenging, yet it is also true that there are many successful organic semiconductor-based technologies. The fact that right now, in the global market, the most advanced and appreciated cellphone screens are OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) based, and that OLED TVs are now approaching 50,000 hours lifespans, as well as the fact that the automotive industry are increasingly using organic pigments in car paints despite that
* M. Acosta [email protected] 1
Materials Science Laboratory, Engineering School, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 97300 Mérida, Yucatán, México
sunlight is a well-known enemy of organic materials[1], are encouraging signs that reliable and stable organic semiconductor materials can be successfully implemented in complex devices. Currently the energy conversion efficiency records of organic research cells are in the order of 15% [2]. These efficiencies are quite modest compared with those of silicon cells, so they might seem an inefficient technology; however if the manufacturing costs are taken into consideration, its cost/benefit ratio sounds quite promising. One way to improve solar cells efficien
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