Plasmonic absorption enhancement in organic photovoltaics

Organic solar cells have a strong potential for the near future, because their material and fabrication costs can be much smaller than for traditional technologies. However, in order to become commercially viable their efficiency needs to increase. One of the novel, interesting techniques to increase the light absorption is by including plasmonic enhancements. These metallic features instigate strong, local resonances which trap the light in the very thin layers. In this work we report rigorous numerical investigations of organic cells with embedded metallic nanoparticles and with patterned metallic electrodes. The state-of-the-art material P3HT:PCBM is employed as the active layer. We show that in both cases, with particles or with patterned electrodes, a strong enhancement is achievable, with roughly an increase of up to 50% in the solar light absorption. Such enhancements could prove crucial for more efficient energy devices.