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The Role of Silver Nanoparticles in the Hole Transport Layer in Organic Solar Cells Based on PBDB-T:ITIC

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Abstract

In this work, the fabrication and characterization of organic solar cells under the bulk heterojunction approach in a direct architecture, with gold nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) disseminated into the hole transport layer (HTL) based on PEDOT:PSS is carried out. The active layer is a blend of PBDB-T donor with the non-fullerene electron acceptor ITIC. Ag-NPs dispersed in deionized water are synthesized by laser ablation protocols using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Results show an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.84 V, a short circuit current density (Jsc) of 15.5 mA/cm2, a fill factor (FF) of 0.49% and a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.4% when 5% of Ag-NPs are incorporated into the PEDOT:PSS layer; for pristine PEDOT:PSS film, the photovoltaic parameters are Voc of 0.85 V, Jsc of 15.4 mA/cm2, FF of 0.45% and PCE of 5.9%; these results mean an 8.5% of PCE enhancement with the Ag-NPs incorporation. Ag-NPs are introduced into the pristine layer PEDOT:PSS to increase light absorption into the active layer through the localized surface plasmonic resonance effect.

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Acknowledgments

Authors thank to M. Olmos (GPOM-CIO) for his technical assistance, A. Dzib-Chalé (Motul Tech) for SCAPs simulations and Prof. Dr. M. Burgelman, University of Gent, Belgium, for the permission to use it. To Y. Fernández-Arteaga (GPOM-CIO) for absorbance/transmittance measurements and J. E. Alba Rosales for the Ag-NPs TEM images and Gaussian statistical distribution.

Funding

This research was supported by CONACyT Grant (Mexico) “Laboratorio Nacional de Materiales Grafénicos (LNMG)”, Fronteras de la Ciencia, Grants 2029 (2016) and 376135 (2020), and Dirección de Apoyo a la Investigación y el Posgrado (DAIP) of the Universidad de Guanajuato (CIIC Grant 219/2020). J. Rivera-Taco thanks “Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa (UNSA), Perú” for financial support through the grant # TD-004-2018-UNSA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa, C.P. 04001, Arequipa, Perú

    Julio Rivera-Taco

  2. Research Group of Optical Properties of Materials (GPOM), Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica, A.P. 1-948, 37150, León, Gto., México

    Julio Rivera-Taco & José-Luis Maldonado

  3. División de Ciencias e Ingenierías, Departamento de Ingeniería Física, Cuerpo Académico de Mecánica Estadística, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato Campus León, A.P. 1-948, 37150, Guanajuato, México

    Rigoberto Castro-Beltrán, Jonathan Álvarez-Martínez & Gerardo Gutiérrez-Juárez

  4. Laboratorio de Fisicoquímica y Reactividad de Superficies (LaFReS), Instituto de Investigaciones en Materiales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), CU, 04510, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México, México

    Denisse Barreiro-Argüelles

  5. Department of Physical Research, Universidad de Sonora, Boulevard Encinas y Rosales, 83000, Hermosillo, Sonora, México

    Jorge A. Gaspar

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Rivera-Taco, J., Castro-Beltrán, R., Maldonado, JL. et al. The Role of Silver Nanoparticles in the Hole Transport Layer in Organic Solar Cells Based on PBDB-T:ITIC. J. Electron. Mater. 50, 4118–4127 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-021-08919-3

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