Enhanced light harvesting in PM6:Y6 organic solar cells using plasmonic nanostructures

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are characterized by their low cost, flexibility, compact size, and solution processing. OSCs are created utilizing a nontoxic technology that employs bulkhetrojunction (BHJ) structures. The photo conversion efficiency (PCE) of OSCs has been boasted in the last decades. BHJ fullerene-based OSCs have low open-circuit voltages and poor photo absorption. In this study, the recent non-fullerene acceptor (Y6), which has an electron-deficient core-based central fused ring, has been used. The promising PM6:Y6 material is used as an active layer in the proposed OSCs. The light trapping of the OSCs is enhanced by embedding plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) in one of its layers. This could be a long-term approach to collecting more light in the photoactive layer. Au and Ag NPs have been employed the most in plasmonic OSCs. They improve PCE due to their plasmonic properties, strong localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) in the visible region of the light spectrum, on-toxicity, and oxidation resistance, although Ag NPs are prone to oxidation. However, they have high costs and thermal instability. Alternative plasmonic materials such as refractory metals with high melting temperatures exceeding 2000°C and high thermal and chemical stability are employed in this work holding a comparative study between them.