Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group
Journal Home About Issues in Progress Current Issue All Issues Feature Issues

Optical design of transparent metal grids for plasmonic absorption enhancement in ultrathin organic solar cells

Inho Kim, Taek Seong Lee, Doo Seok Jeong, Wook Seong Lee, Won Mok Kim, and Kyeong-Seok Lee

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

Transparent metal grid combining with plasmonic absorption enhancement is a promising replacement to indium tin oxide thin films. We numerically demonstrate metal grids in one or two dimension lead to plasmonic absorption enhancements in ultrathin organic solar cells. In this paper, we study optical design of metal grids for plasmonic light trapping and identify different plasmonic modes of the surface plasmon polaritons excited at the interfaces of glass/metal grids, metal grids/active layers, and the localized surface plasmon resonance of the metal grids using numerical calculations. One dimension metal grids with the optimal design of a width and a period lead to the absorption enhancement in the ultrathin active layers of 20 nm thickness by a factor of 2.6 under transverse electric polarized light compared to the case without the metal grids. Similarly, two dimensional metal grids provide the absorption enhancement by a factor of 1.8 under randomly polarized light.

©2013 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Effect of geometric lattice design on optical/electrical properties of transparent silver grid for organic solar cells

Ju Won Lim, Young Tack Lee, Rina Pandey, Tae-Hee Yoo, Byoung-In Sang, Byeong-Kwon Ju, Do Kyung Hwang, and Won Kook Choi
Opt. Express 22(22) 26891-26899 (2014)

Embedding metal electrodes in thick active layers for ITO-free plasmonic organic solar cells with improved performance

Sangjun Lee, Daniel R. Mason, Sungjun In, and Namkyoo Park
Opt. Express 22(S4) A1145-A1152 (2014)

Plasmonic nanograting design for inverted polymer solar cells

Inho Kim, Doo Seok Jeong, Taek Seong Lee, Wook Seong Lee, and Kyeong-Seok Lee
Opt. Express 20(S5) A729-A739 (2012)

View More...

Cited By

Optica participates in Crossref's Cited-By Linking service. Citing articles from Optica Publishing Group journals and other participating publishers are listed here.

Alert me when this article is cited.


Figures (7)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Device structure schematic of ultrathin organic solar cells with a 1D plasmonic metal grid embedded in a buffer layer for FDTD calculations. The x-y coordinate for the FDTD calculation is drawn together.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 2
Fig. 2 Contour plots of the optical absorption in (a) the active layers and (b) the metal grids as functions of a metal grid period and a wavelength. The solid line and the dashed line are dispersion curves of the SPP modes excited at the interfaces of glass/metal grid and metal grid/active layer, respectively. The inset figures are magnetic field (H-field) distributions in the multi-layered solar cells calculated by the Eigen mode solver for the SPP modes excited at (1) glass/metal grid and (2) metal grid/active layer, respectively. The vacuum wavelengths of incident light are 600 nm and 700 nm for SPP mode (1) and (2), respectively. (c) Normalized E-field intensity (|E|2) distributions at the wavelength of 412 nm, the metal grid period of 200 nm and the metal grid width of 100 nm. The E-field intensity is normalized to that (|E0|2) of incident light. (d) Absorption enhancements as a function of the metal grid period under TM, TE and randomly polarized light for the device structures with the width of 100 nm.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Contour plots of the optical absorption in (a) the active layers and (b) the metal grids as functions of a metal grid width and a wavelength. (c) Normalized E-field intensity distributions at the wavelength of 640 nm, the metal grid period of 150 nm and the metal grid width of 40 nm. The E-field intensity (|E|2) is normalized to that (|E0|2) of incident light. (d) Absorption enhancements as a function of the metal grid width under TM, TE and randomly polarized light for the device structures with the period of 150 nm.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 4
Fig. 4 (a) Contour plots of the optical absorption in the metal grids. (b) Calculated photocurrents for the cells of various active layer thicknesses with and without the metal grids under TM, TE and randomly polarized light. The incident light is assumed to be a standard solar radiation (AM 1.5G) at a light intensity of 100 mW/cm2.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Absorption enhancements in the active layers for the cells with varying the width and the period of the metal grids under (a) TM, (b) TE, and (c) randomly polarized light.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 6
Fig. 6 Optical transmission of 1D metal grids with the width of 40 nm and the period of 150 nm on glass under TM (black), TE (red), and randomly polarized light (blue) which is incident from glass side.

Download Full Size | PDF

Fig. 7
Fig. 7 (a) Schematic of device structure with a 2D metal grid embedded in a buffer layer. Ag reflector, active layer, buffer layer, metal grid, and substrate are colored with dark gray, purple, blue, dark gray, and light gray, respectively. The x-y-z coordinate for FDTD calculations is drawn together. (b) Absorption spectra of the cells with and without 1D, 2D metal grids under randomly polarized light. The width and the period of the metal grids are 40 nm and 150 nm, respectively. (c) Normalized E-field intensity distributions at the wavelength of 695 nm under polarized light in the x direction. The contour plot is shown on the cross-section along x-y plane passing through the vertical interface of metal grid/buffer layer.

Download Full Size | PDF

Select as filters
Select Topics Cancel
Top
       
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Privacy | Terms of Use