Approaches to enhance optical absorption and efficiency of photovoltaic device

Abstract

Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) is an environmental friendly technology that promises e cient and e ective harvesting of solar energy. The organic polymers used in the fabrication of OPVs are characterized by low weight, tunable electrical and optical properties. However, the low photo-conversion e ciency (PCE) and instability in air remains a major drawback that limits their commercialization. The project seeks to increase the PCE of a cheap photovoltaic device using plasmonic e ects and rare earth doped waveguides to modify the optical response in the active layer. Incorporating regularly shaped silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) in OPVs through the surface plasmon resonance will enhance tunable absorption and scattering of light. These NPs are prepared by reducing AgNO3 with N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and using 2,2- Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) as a stabiliser at di erent reaction times. The Ag NPs have shown di erent shapes such as spherical and prism shapes of 14, 15 and 16 nm visualised by TEM.