Broadband absorption enhancement in organic solar cells with an antenna layer through surface-plasmon mediated energy transfer

We demonstrated a strategy to realize broadband enhanced absorption in the top-incident inverted organic solar cells (OSCs) by employing an external antenna layer on top of the periodic corrugated metallic anode. Surface-plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are excited on the opposite interfaces of the periodic corrugated metallic anode, which mediate the energy transfer from the antenna layer to the active layer through the anode. The absorption of the OSCs is significantly broadened and enhanced by tuning the SPP resonance to coincide with both the emission of the antenna and the absorption of the active material. The power conversion efficiency exhibits an enhancement of 16% compared to that of the OSCs without the antenna layer.