Plasmonic polymer tandem solar cell.

We demonstrated plasmonic effects in an inverted tandem polymer solar cell configuration by blending Au nanoparticles (NPs) into the interconnecting layer (ICL) that connects two subcells. Experimental results showed this plasmonic enhanced ICL improves both the top and bottom subcells' efficiency simultaneously by enhancing optical absorption. The presence of Au NPs did not cause electrical characteristics to degrade within the tandem cell. As a result, a 20% improvement of power conversion efficiency has been attained by the light concentration of Au NPs via plasmonic near-field enhancement. The simulated near-field distribution and experimental Raman scattering investigation support our results of plasmonic induced enhancement in solar cell performance. Our finding shows a great potential of incorporating the plasmonic effect with conventional device structure in achieving highly efficient polymer solar cells.