Optical and electrical enhancement for high performance hybrid Si/organic heterojunction solar cells using gold nanoparticles

Abstract Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) layers incorporating with Au nanoparticles (NPs) have been explored for fabricating the hybrid Si/organic solar cells. After incorporating with Au NPs, the power conversation efficiency (PCE) of 12.85% has been achieved, which corresponds to ∼23% improvement comparing with that of the pristine one. The current density-voltage (J-V), external quantum efficiency (EQE), capacitance-voltage (C-V), and transient photovoltage decay (TPV) results demonstrate that, besides the traditional plasmonic effects, the electrical effects caused by Au NPs also contribute to the enhancement of the device performance. After incorporating with Au NPs, the conductivity of the PEDOT:PSS layer is slightly enhanced and the built-in electric field (V bi ) of the device is also improved. Both of them are also beneficial for enhanced charge separation and collection, significantly suppressing the recombination process of the devices. Our preliminary results highlight the importance that both optical and electrical properties need to be addressed simultaneously for achieving high PCEs, which give a path to enhance the performance of the Si/organic solar cells with metallic NPs.