High-Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells Achieved by Doping Plasmonic Metallic Nanoparticles into Dual Charge Selecting Interfacial Layers to Enhance Light Trapping

Significantly increased power conversion efficiency (PCE) of polymer solar cells (PSCs) is achieved by applying a plasmonic enhanced light trapping strategy to a low bandgap conjugated polymer, poly(indacenodithiophene-co-phananthrene-quinoxaline) (PIDT-PhanQ) and [6,6]-phenyl-C₇₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₁BM) based bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) system. By doping both the rear and front charge-selecting interfacial layers of the device with different sizes of Au NPs, the PCE of the devices is improved from 6.65% to 7.50% (13% enhancement). A detailed study of processing, characterization, microscopy, and device fabrication is conducted to understand the underlying mechanism for the enhanced device performance. The success of this work provides a simple and generally applicable approach to enhance light harnessing of low bandgap polymers in PSCs.