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In the solar energy world, organic photovoltaic solar cells have a wide range of potential applications, but they are still considered to be in their infancy. Although these carbon-based batteries using organic polymers or small molecules as semiconductors are thinner and have lower production costs than conventional solar cells made using inorganic silicon chips, their efficiency in converting light energy into electric energy is not satisfactory.
However, according to the report of the American Physicist Organization Network on August 17 (Beijing time), researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues from China and Japan have enhanced the use of gold nanoparticles for organic photovoltaic solar cells. The ability of light absorption greatly improves the photoelectric conversion rate of the battery.
In the newly published American Chemical Society’s “Nano†magazine, a research team headed by Yang Yang, a professor of materials and engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, Henry Salisbury’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, published an article describing how they put gold nanoparticles. The layers are implanted in two light absorbing regions of a series-connected high molecular solar cell to form a special sandwich structure cell, thereby harvesting light energy of a broader solar spectrum.
The researchers found that through the interconnection of the gold nanoparticle layers, they dramatically increased the photoelectric conversion rate of photovoltaic solar cells. Gold nanoparticles can generate a strong electromagnetic field in a thin organic photovoltaic layer through the plasma effect. As a result, the light energy is concentrated to be more captured by the light absorption region in the battery.
Despite many difficulties in incorporating metal nanostructures into the structure of photovoltaic solar cells, the research team resolved these problems and announced for the first time that it has successfully developed plasma-enhanced polymer tandem solar cells. Yang Yang said that by simply implanting the gold nanoparticle layer into the two light absorption regions of the cell, they have obtained high-efficiency plasma polymer tandem solar cells. The plasma effect that occurs in the middle of the connection layer can simultaneously improve the working conditions of the upper and lower light absorption regions, increasing the conversion rate of the tandem solar cells from the previous 5.22% to 6.24%, and increasing the ratio by 20%.
Both experimental and theoretical results show that the improvement of the efficiency of solar photovoltaic cells is due to the enhancement of the near region of gold nanoparticles, and also shows that the plasma effect has great potential for the development of future polymer solar cells. The research team believes that the sandwich structure can be applied to a variety of polymer materials as an open platform, creating an opportunity to obtain highly efficient multi-layered tandem solar cells.
Yang Yang, who led the research, is also the director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at the California Institute of Nanosystems, University of California, Los Angeles. The researchers involved in the project included Zhang Xingwang from the Semiconductor Materials Science Key Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Semiconductor Institute and Hong Ziruo from the Yamagata University's Graduate School of Science and Engineering.
Editor's Editor
From a purely technical point of view, this study did a good job, allowing the initial stage of the organic battery photoelectric conversion rate of more than 6%. It is necessary to know that the conversion rate of photovoltaic products that has reached a mature level of commercialization worldwide is only about 20% higher. However, from the perspective of industry and market, the high-efficiency data in the laboratory is not too exciting for companies and users. For this emerging industry, how to reduce costs as soon as possible, accelerate the popularization and application, enlarge the market cake as quickly as possible, and promote the advent of photovoltaic “parity era†is what they are most concerned about at present. As for the selection of the technology route, the attitude of the entire industry should be quite open, even if the raw materials use expensive gold. Of course, it's better to be cheaper.
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