PlasmonicallyEngineered Textile Polymer Solar Cellsfor High-Performance, Wearable Photovoltaics

A practically applicable type of wearable polymer solar cells (PSCs) is presented with the enhanced performance by exploiting simply embodied, plasmonic nanostructures on a commercially available textile platform of optically opaque, geometrically uneven, and physically permeable woven fabrics that are commonly not compatible with organic photovoltaics. On a conformable fabric substrate preferentially processed with organic/inorganic multilayers for both planarization and encapsulation, the fabrication of top-illuminated, inverted type of PSCs with a transparent top electrode consisting of optimized dielectric/metal/dielectric multilayers is conducted, where a nanostructure of disorderly distributed elliptical hemispheres is implanted at an opaque bottom silver electrode by spin-coated silica nanoparticles in advance of depositing this electrode. The nanostructured bottom electrode promotes the light trapping effect at wavelengths of the surface plasmon resonance, as well as reduces the electrical Ohmic l...