Cooperative plasmon enhanced organic solar cells with thermal coevaporated Au and Ag nanoparticles

Abstract Cooperative plasmon enhanced small molecule organic solar cells are demonstrated based on thermal coevaporated Au and Ag nanoparticles (NPs). The optimized device with an appropriate molar ratio of Au:Ag NPs shows a power conversion efficiency of 3.32%, which is 22.5% higher than that of the reference device without any NPs. The improvement is mainly contributed to the increased short-circuit current which resulted from the enhanced light harvesting due to localized surface plasmon resonance of Au:Ag NPs and the increased conductivity of the device. Besides, factors that determining the performance of the Au:Ag NPs cooperative plasmon enhance organic solar cells are investigated, and it finds that the thickness of MoO 3 buffer layer plays a crucial role. Owing to the different diameter of the thermal evaporated Au and Ag NPs, a suitable MoO 3 buffer layer is required to afford a large electromagnetic enhancement and to avoid significant exciton quenching by the NPs.