Organic Solar Cells Improved by Optically Resonant Silicon Nanoparticles

Silicon nanophotonics has become a versatile platform for optics and optoelectronics. For example, strong light localization at the nanoscale and lack of parasitic losses in infrared and visible spectral ranges make resonant silicon nanoparticles a prospect for improvement in such rapidly developing fields as photovoltaics. Here, we employed optically resonant silicon nanoparticles produced by laser ablation for boosting the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells. Namely, we created colloidal solutions of spherical nanoparticles with a range of diameters (80-240 nm) in different solvents. We tested how the nanoparticles' position in the device, their concentration, silicon doping, and method of deposition affected the final device efficiency. The best conditions optimization resulted in an efficiency improvement from 6% up to 7.5%, which correlated with numerical simulations of nanoparticles' optical properties. The developed low-cost approach paves the way toward highly efficient and stable solution-processable solar cells.