UCLA researchers and their colleagues from China and Japan have shown that by incorporating gold nanoparticles into organic photovoltaics, taking advantage of the plasmonic effect by which metal helps to enhance the absorption of sunlight, they can significantly improve the cells’ power conversion.In a paper recently published in “ACS Nano,” the team of researchers, led by Yang Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, demonstrate how they sandwiched a layer of gold nanoparticles between two light-absorbing subcells in a tandem polymer solar cell in order to harvest a greater fraction of the solar spectrum.They found that by employing the interconnecting gold-nanoparticle layer, they were able to enhance power conversion by as much as 20 percent. The gold nanoparticles create a strong electromagnetic field inside the thin organic photovoltaic layers by a plasmonic effect, which concentrates light so that much more of it can be absorbed by the subcells.Learn more from UCLA.
Researchers use Gold to Boost Organic Solar Cell Efficiency
